Argentina

Coach Michael Cheika has kept faith with the rest of the starting team and bench that defeated Wales 29-17 in their quarter-final clash in Marseille, including another start for Santiago Carreras at flyhalf.

The side will be captained by hooker Julian Montoya having won their last four games in a row since an opening defeat by England, a feat they have not achieved since the 2015 World Cup.

He makes up a front row that also includes props Thomas Gallo, who has beaten more defenders than any other forward in this year's tournament, and Francisco Gomez Kodela.

The seven-time Ballon d'Or winner beat French forwards Kylian Mbappe and Karim Benzema to the award.

Messi, 35, helped Argentina win the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, scoring 27 goals in 49 games for club and country in 2021-22.

Barcelona's Alexia Putellas was named women's player of the year.

At the ceremony in Paris, Lionel Scaloni, who led Argentina to their third World Cup title, was named men's coach of the year.

Messi, along with his Paris St Germain team mate Kylian Mbappe and Manchester City's Erling Haaland, were among the 14 players shortlisted for The Best FIFA Men's Player award.

The trio are joined by last year's winner Robert Lewandowski of Barcelona, Manchester City playmaker Kevin De Bruyne, Liverpool's Mohamed Salah and PSG's Neymar and Achraf Hakimi.

Real Madrid's Karim Benzema, who won the 2022 Ballon d'Or award, is also in the shortlist.

The team arrived in the early hours at Ezeiza city airport, where despite it being around 3am local time (7pm Tuesday NZ time) thousands were waiting with banners, flags and flares, and howling in joy at the victory, which came 36 years after the country's last World Cup victory.

By around midday in Argentina hundreds of thousands had congregated in downtown Buenos Aires, with major roads shut down for the parade. People held up banners of Messi and late icon Diego Maradona, played instruments or climbed lampposts or bus stops.

Argentina keeper Emiliano Martinez saved Kingsley Coman's penalty and Aurelien Tchouameni fired wide to give Argentina their first world title since 1986, and third overall.

France had come from two goals down to level over 90 minutes with Kylian Mbappe netting twice in two minutes, including an 80th-minute penalty.

The France striker completed his hat-trick in the 118th with another spot-kick after Argentina's Lionel Messi had tapped in for a 3-2 lead in the 109th.

Just like Diego Maradona stamped himself indelibly on Argentina's 1986 win in Mexico and Brazil striker Ronaldo wrote a redemption story in Yokohama in their 2002 triumph, this will be known as Messi's World Cup if he inspires victory against either France or Morocco in the final.

Argentina's campaign in Qatar opened with the ignominy of what is still this World Cup's biggest shock, when they lost to Saudi Arabia.

The resounding win over Croatia secured Argentina a spot in the World Cup final for the second time in eight years, after they fell short against Germany at Brazil 2014.

Croatia made an impressive start to the game, defending well and attacking with energy and poise.

However, towards the end of the first half Argentina opened the scoring in the 34th minute through a penalty from Lionel Messi.

Croatia were not the favourites to reach the last four again but they came through two penalty shootouts in a repeat of their 2018 exploits.

"They have troubled many national teams. I won't mention the key players or their strengths and weaknesses but we've analysed where we can hurt them. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't," coach Lionel Scaloni said on the eve of the first semi-final.

The first half of the long and fiery match proved to be a tight affair with plenty of tension on the pitch and the sidelines.

After an evenly poised start to the match it took a bit of magic from Lionel Messi to unlock the game, with the Argentina playmaker threading a perfectly placed pass in between the Dutch defense for Nahuel Molina to run on to.

Reuters reports the full-back took one well-controlled touch to take it into the box before coolly placing his shot past the Netherlands keeper to score the opening goal in the 35th minute.

The Argentinians led 17-5 at half time and scored five tries to two.

The last time Argentina won a World Series tournament was in the United States in 2009, when current coach Santiago Gomez Cora was playing for them.

"I loved playing on the circuit, but ever since I have been a coach this has been the moment I have been working towards and my players must take all the credit because they work so hard and they wanted to win this one for their country so much," said Gomez Cora.