World Cup clean sweep: Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe vying to join exclusive club

A mouth-watering World Cup final will take place at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar on Sunday as Argentina take on defending champions France in the biggest game in football.

While there is world-class talent on both sides, the contest has largely been billed as a showdown between Paris Saint-Germain teammates Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe - widely regarded as the two best players in the world right now.

Despite being 12 years younger, Mbappe can already boast a World Cup winners' medal, whereas Sunday will provide Messi with one last shot at securing the trophy which has so far eluded him in his legendary career.

The World Cup trophy is undoubtedly the biggest prize on offer, but additional sub-plots surround the race for the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball, both of which are seemingly still very much up for grabs.

The script writers could barely have come up with a more tantalising scenario either, with Messi and Mbappe the two front-runners for both awards.

Messi currently leads the way in the Golden Boot race with five goals and three assists to Mbappe's five goals and two assists, while Julian Alvarez and Olivier Giroud are also in contention for that award having netted four times apiece in Qatar.

The Golden Ball - awarded to the tournament's best player - is a far more subjective award, but Messi and Mbappe are the main contenders for it, and at this stage it appears that Messi has his nose in front in that battle too.

The Argentine has won that particular award before - as a losing finalist in 2014 - but the difference between the two players right now is so tight that it could all come down to who outshines whom in Sunday's final.

That said, instances of a player winning the Golden Ball and lifting the trophy are relatively rare - you have to go back to Romario for Brazil in 1994 for the last such occasion.

It is similar for the Golden Boot, with Brazil's Ronaldo in 2002 the only player in the last 40 years to have been crowned the tournament's top scorer while also going home with the main trophy.

To complete a clean sweep of winning the Golden Boot, Golden Ball and the tournament itself is rarer still, and only three players in the history of the World Cup can lay claim to doing so.

Indeed, only one player has ever done so officially, with Paolo Rossi inspiring Italy to success in 1982 - the first year that the Golden Ball was officially introduced.

However, there was an unofficial award four years previously, when Mario Kempes finished as top scorer, best player and steered Argentina to their first-ever World Cup title - a feat not only Diego Maradona could repeat as he dragged Argentina to glory eight years later.

Although there was no official award at the time, Garrincha was the standout player at the 1962 World Cup with Brazil, which remains the last time a team retained the trophy.

The wing wizard, who stepped up in the absence of the injured Pele for much of the tournament, also finished as joint-top scorer in Chile, although his four-goal haul meant he shared that award with six other players.

A standout performance from either Messi or Mbappe could well be enough for them to join that illustrious list of Garrincha, Kempes and Rossi, then, forever cementing their place in World Cup history if it has not been already.