The 2022 World Cup was a tournament full of thrills, spills, controversy and contention that ended with Lionel Messi’s Argentina lifting the famous trophy on Sunday.
Here, the PA news agency tells the story of the Qatar tournament in pictures.
The opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup took place at the Al Bayt Stadium (Mike Egerton/PA)
There was further controversy when team captains, including England’s Harry Kane, were told by FIFA they could not wear the ‘OneLove’ armband in matches (Martin Rickett/PA)
Germany’s players, meanwhile, made their own protest by covering their mouths as they posed for a team photo ahead of their first match with Japan (Mike Egerton/PA)
Gianni Infantino took aim at European critics of Qatar on the eve of the tournament in an extraordinary hour-long monologue (Nick Potts/PA)
Argentina fans turned out in force in Qatar as they hoped to see Lionel Messi follow in Diego Maradona’s footsteps and lift the World Cup (Mike Egerton/PA)
Richarlison scored one of the goals of the tournament as Brazil beat Serbia in their first match (Peter Byrne/PA)
Japan’s winning goal against Spain caused an intense debate as to whether the ball had gone out before Ao Tanaka (not in picture) scored, with four-time winners Germany knocked out as a result (Mike Egerton/PA)
Senegal fans also made themselves known as their team progressed to the last 16 (Mike Egerton/PA)
But he ended up having to settle for a role on Portugal’s bench (Martin Rickett/PA)
Neymar’s World Cup did not go as he would have hoped either (Nick Potts/PA)
England also paid the penalty as Harry Kane’s miss against France saw them exit at the quarter-finals (Mike Egerton/PA)
Morocco were the tournament’s surprise package as they became the first African team to reach a World Cup semi-final, beating Belgium, Spain and Portugal en route (Adam Davy/PA)
Theo Hernandez set Les Bleus on their way to a 2-0 win at the Al Bayt Stadium (Martin Rickett/PA)
There were 18 yellow cards and one red shown during a fiery and incident-packed quarter-final at the Lusail Stadium (Martin Rickett/PA)
Croatia won the third place play-off against Morocco (Adam Davy/PA)
With Kylian Mbappe, left, and Messi taking centre stage (Nick Potts/PA)
And he enjoyed the celebrations (Adam Davy/PA)
Olivier Giroud was not happy about being taken off in the first half as France made a double change (Martin Rickett/PA)
Before getting a quickfire second to draw France level and take the game to extra time (Adam Davy/PA)
Messi looked to have won it for Argentina with his goal in extra time (Mike Egerton/PA)
But Argentina were the ones celebrating at the end as they won the shoot-out to claim World Cup glory (Nick Potts/PA)
Messi finally got his hands on the World Cup trophy (Nick Potts/PA)
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