Who are the favourites for the 2022 World Cup final? France have the slenderest of edges

France are favourites by the barest of margins for the 2022 World Cup final

Here’s how the final three’s chances are rated, according to the best odds currently available at oddschecker.com

1) France
The first change at the top came with France assuming favouritism thanks to Croatia going magnificently, absurdly Full Croatia to dump long-time jollies Brazil out of the tournament. Cheers, Neymar’s crying. Nice one.

After briefly looking like they might be about to go a little bit France by falling behind to an Australia side seemingly made up entirely of Scottish Premiership and former Scottish Premiership players, Kylian Mbappe then happened and Les Bleus absolutely sauntered to a 4-1 win. Then Mbappe turned it on again to down Denmark.

We’re still not sure France are a side we’d want to be backing when they’re particularly well fancied, and while the half-arsed defeat to Tunisia in the final group game was barely a wrinkle in the grand scheme, it did rather threaten our own previously stated claim that France’s second team would have a good crack at winning this whole thing. And it saw them slip from second to third-favourites with the bookies. But then back up again when they sauntered past Poland at the last-16 stage thanks to the wondrous Mbappe.

England stopped Mbappe – but they didn’t get to grips with Antoine Griezmann. Morocco were great again in the semi-final, but France got the job done and are now a shade of odds-on for the final

2) Argentina
Lionel Messi’s Last Chance at the Big Dance. Argentina have a formidable squad that blends youth and experience perfectly, and hadn’t lost a game since the 2019 Copa America before they came a cropper against Saudi Arabia. Mercifully for La Albiceleste, they bounced back to beat Mexico, even if it was all a bit frantic and then dominated a Poland side more interested in avoiding bookings than scoring goals.

The upshot is that without ever being thoroughly convincing Argentina safely went through and importantly in the Group C winners’ section of the draw. It mattered. Instead of a last-16 clash with France they faced a brave but ultimately limited Australia and then a Netherlands team who somehow took them to penalties.

After their enthralling shootout win over the Dutch, Argentina brushed Croatia aside in what was a bitterly disappointing night for Luka Modric and co. The performance from Messi – who made the brilliant Josko Gvardiol look a bit silly – was ridiculous, and boringly arse-splinteringly fence-sitting as it may be the final really is anybody’s game.