Who could be the referee of Argentina and France: there are five candidates, one who is sharp and has already managed La Scaloneta

Almost everything is known. The grand finale of the Qatar 2022 World Cup has rivals, day, time, place… In all, logically, the last thing known will be the lineups of the teams. But other information is not yet known and given the timing that FIFA was managing with appointments, the refereeing team that will be in Lusail should be announced this Friday, 48 hours before the Messi-Mbappé duels.

Just as defeated teams pack up and leave the territory of Qatar, the same thing happens with the referees. For these last instances, of the 36 referees who started the tournament, 24 have already left. Among the remaining 12, he will be the chosen one. But you can also filter a little more, based on some real data.

Seven referees have fewer chances due to the following conditions: Raphael Claus and Wilton Sampaio, because they are Brazilians, which would not be welcomed given the rivalry with Argentina; Daniele Orsato (Italy) and César Ramos (Mexico) have already led the semi-finals, while Muhammad Abdulla Hassan Muhammad (United Arab Emirates) and Jesús Valenzuela (Venezuela) have already reached the quarter-finals. Another is Ismail Elfath, from the United States, who had already lost ground for the semifinal, because of Moroccan origin.

As a result, there are five with better prospects for Sunday’s big event, and of all of them, one with the best prognosis. He has already managed the Argentines and the French in this World Cup and we are talking about the Polish Szymon Marciniak. At 41 he was in Argentina-Australia in the round of 16 and with France-Denmark in the second round of the group stage.

The others who still have chances are Anthony Taylor (England), Mustapha Ghorbal (Algeria), Danny Makkelie (Netherlands) and Abdulrahman Al-Jassim (Qatar). Taking into account that there is a Dutchman on the list, and remembering how controversial the end of the cross with Argentina was in the quarterfinals, he would be almost excluded. The Algerian and the Qatari, with fewer opportunities for experience. And in any case, English could be an option.

Selection day

Lionel Scaloni’s team trains this Thursday after the day of rest after the victory against Croatia. The training will not have much workload since whoever played the most minutes will still perform recovery exercises.

The rest, as usual, will focus more on technical-tactical exercises. The coaching staff bring back Gonzalo Montiel and Marcos Acuña, who met their suspension date due to accumulating yellow cards.

The doubt passes through the presence of Ángel Di María, who didn’t come on against Croatia but was available to Scaloni. Rosario’s man played 10 minutes against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals after suffering sore muscles against Poland two weeks ago.

Also expected is Alejandro Gómez’s evolution after being ruled out of the substitutes bench in his last game with a sprained ankle against Australia in the round of 16.

With France on the horizon, Scaloni will also have to decide whether to keep the 4-4-2, whether to return to a 4-3-3 with Di María as starter or finally lean towards the line of five defenders with Lisandro Martínez.

The DT and his collaborators Pablo Aimar, Walter Samuel and Roberto Ayala will have two other practices to solve these questions.

The activity will be behind closed doors on Friday and on Saturday there will first be a Scaloni conference and a player to be designated at the Doha Media Center and then an open practice for the first fifteen minutes.