While the Argentine and French players will be the shining stars on the Lusail Stadium turf during Sunday’s World Cup final, it’s almost impossible to ignore two other strategic minds plotting how the finale will pan out—Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni and his French counterpart Didier Deschamps.  
While Deschamps, 54, a World Cup-winner as both player and coach, has been there and done that, Scaloni—10 years his junior—has learnt the ropes quickly and adapted to tough match situations brilliantly here.

Scaloni’s magic v Mexico

Argentina’s difficult group fixture against Mexico is a case in point. When Mexican manager Tata Martino switched from his regular 4-3-3 formation to a backline-reinforcing 5-3-2, and Argentina [4-4-2] struggled to even reach their opposition box in the first half, Scaloni drew up a masterplan at half-time. Mexico had a back-five and four centre-halves with just two wingers, so Scaloni placed midfielder Guido Rodriguez between his center-backs Lisandro Martinez and Nicolas Otamendi, creating a false back-three. He however, instructed Guido to play closer to the Argentine midfielders and advance through the right wings and pressurise the Mexican wingbacks. Simply put, Scaloni used Rodriguez as a false deep defender, instead making him frequently function in attack mode to breach Mexico’s wide wingbacks and open things up down the middle for Messi. In the 64th minute, Messi made apt use of this newfound space and scored.