The incident came shortly after Argentine goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez courted controversy by celebrating his Golden Glove award with a left gesture. The Aston Villa goalkeeper held the trophy, a giant gold-plated hand, to his groin and waved it about.
The incident is unlikely to take the shine off the event for Messi as he finally won the World Cup to cement his status as arguably the world’s greatest player ever. Messi scored the opening goal from the penalty spot as Argentina took a 2-0 lead before Kylian Mbappe scored twice in 97 seconds to send the game to extra-time.
Messi appeared to have won it with a goal from close range in the second period of extra-time before Mbappe sent it to penalties by scoring his own spot-kick to become just the second man in history to score a World Cup final hat-trick .
Martinez was the hero, though, saving from Kingsley Coman before his mind-games played a part in Aurelien Tchouameni shooting wide as Argentina won the shootout.
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