During the course of two years, Lusail Stadium has been the stage for two thrilling finals, the 2023 AFC Asian Cup and the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Between the Asian final and the World Cup final, the Qatari stadium witnessed a remarkable coincidence and an achievement that is hard to replicate in world stadiums.
Last Saturday, Akram Afif scored a hat-trick from the penalty spot, leading the Qatari national team to a 3-1 victory over Jordan and securing their second consecutive continental title. At that moment, football fans recalled the thrilling encounter between Argentina and France in the World Cup final.
In that intense World Cup final, the referee awarded three penalties, one of which was converted by Lionel Messi for Argentina, followed by Di Maria doubling the lead. France then received a penalty which Kylian Mbappe successfully converted, scoring another goal to end the original time with a 2-2 draw.
After Argentina took a 3-2 lead in the first extra time, Mbappe scored his personal third goal from the penalty spot again to level the score at 3-3, leading the teams to a penalty shootout eventually won by the Tango national team.
It is also ironic that both Mbappe and Afif scoring hat-tricks in the global and Asian finals led them to win the top scorer award with 8 goals each, an occurrence unlikely on the same pitch at Lusail for two different tournaments.
The events repeated themselves at Lusail Stadium with their similar details, but the outcome was different. Thanks to his historic hat-trick, Afif led his country’s team to the continental podium, while Mbappe, despite his hat-trick, failed to help France achieve the World Cup dream.
Afif became the first player to score a hat-trick in the Asian Cup finals and the third player to score 8 goals or more in a single edition after Iranian Ali Daei (8 goals) in 1996 and his teammate Almoez Ali (9 goals) in 2019.
The 27-year-old Afif contributed to 22 goals with the Qatari national team in the last two editions of the Asian Cup, scoring 9 goals and providing 13 assists, accounting for 67% of the team’s goals.
