Five ways Argentina can learn from France's mistakes and beat Spain in World Cup final: The area they need to exploit and the two stars who hold the key for the European champions

Lionel Messi

picked up some very early experience of

Lamine Yamal

. He was pictured bathing him in a changing room at the Nou Camp, in 2007, when the future Spain international was a babe-in-arms.

Yamal’s family had won a raffle to have their picture taken at the stadium with a Barca player and Messi was a 20-year-old emerging star at the time.

Yamal being a huge Messi fan won’t make the slightest difference in Sunday’s World Cup final, given the quality of Spain’s performance in their 2-0 semi-final win over France.

Argentina will need to put in the performance of the tournament and can learn from lacklustre France’s mistakes in five ways:

Prevent

Rodri

cutting off the supply to Messi

France tried to play through the central areas which Rodri and Fabian Ruiz suffocated, making it impossible to get enough ball through to

Kylian Mbappe

,

Ousmane Dembele

and Michael Olise and create any kind of xG.

France were anaemic and heads went down but it will require huge performances from

Enzo Fernandez

, Alexis Mac Allister and Rodrigo de Paul to win that battle and keep a supply line route open - denying Spain their own easy progression through the centre.

Argentina seem unlikely to match Spain with orthodox wingers to bypass the problem. They’re going to have to win the narrower battle.

Rodri played a key role for Spain in their dominant win over France in the semi-finals

Intelligent doubling up on Yamal

Despite the temptation to get two men doubling up on Lamine Yamal, who before the France game had gained more metres with the ball than any player at the World Cup bar Ivorian Yan Diomande, it was overlapping Pedro Porro who France failed to take account of.

Yamal drops into the more central areas, from which a backheel or slipped pass finds the advancing Porro. This created a nightmare for Lucas Digne.

Argentinian left back Nicolás Tagliafico will probably be tasked to deal with Yamal, with left-sided centre half

Lisandro Martinez

as back-up, but Mac Allister will need to work with the defence to police this Spanish combination, rather than allow Argentina to swarm around Yamal and thus lose Porro, as France did.

Argentina will have to double up on Lamine Yamal to stop the star influencing the game

Guard the penalty box pockets

Spain’s second goal against France demonstrated the extraordinary levels of technical ability they show inside minute pockets of space within the opposition box, where a give-and-go between Porro and Dani Olmo carved out the space for Porro to score.

Incredibly difficult to defend against over 90 minutes. Spain often position at least two players in front of the ball: typically Olmo and Mikel Oyarzabal or other combinations.

One receives the ball behind the opposing midfielders and then slips it to the other with one or two touches. The French couldn’t cope. It will take extreme powers of concentration from Martínez, Cristian Romero, Mac Allister and Fernandez to close down the player who receives the ball and, as much as possible, intercept, preventing Spain from carving open that shooting opportunity

Cristian Romero (left) and Lisandro Martinez (right) will have to guard the penalty box pockets

Exploit the high defensive line

Spain’s defensive line frequently stands close to half way but that carries a risk if Argentina can get direct runners into the space behind and pinpoint them accurately.

Before they became suffocated, France almost succeeded via a 30-year diagonal ball from Dembele to Mbappe which the No 10 seized on before Spanish defenders swarmed.

Messi has the genius to make Spain uncomfortable in the same way, finding the through pass for Julian Alvarez. Argentina need to make the first pass after regaining possession a 30 or 40-yard one for their runners, exploiting that high line.

This game has the words ‘Messi assist’ written all over it.

Embrace disruption

Spain coach Luis de la Fuente has spoken of a beautiful ‘circularity’ about the fact that ten of this Spain squad played for him in the Spain under-19s team.

He has known some of them since the age of 15. Because the national team plays the same way at all age groups, they instinctively know what is expected of them. This breeds an incredible spirit and familiarity.

They have to be knocked out of their stride on Sunday. Argentina proved so often against England that they can disrupt, through gamesmanship or sheer physicality. Spain’s great weapon is their work-rate but Argentina can scramble them and their heads in a way that France failed to do.

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