Trump reveals who he’s rooting for in World Cup final and tells Fox pregame he’s already asking for another | OneFootball

Donald Trump has revealed he is backing Argentina to win today’s World Cup final, saying: “It’s hard to bet against Messi.”

The president is set to present the World Cup trophy to the winner of the Sunday game between Argentina and Spain.

Speaking to Fox ahead of the match, Trump was asked who he thought would triumph and said he’d been giving the question a lot of thought as he “knew” they would ask.

After describing Argentinian president Javier Milei as a “friend of mine” who has done a “terrific job”, Trump declared that he thought the South American country would come out on top because of their star player.

He went on to describe Messi’s game-winning assist in the semi-final against England, saying: “I watched that pass... I guess you’d call it a pass... that was perfect. If you had a strike zone, it was exactly where it had to be. I watched also just before that, the way he got away from the defender. He was very well defended, and then all of a sudden he was standing by himself... It’s hard to bet against Messi, he’s great.”

President Donald Trump reveals he's backing Argentina ahead of the Fifa World Cup final (Fox Sports)

Trump declined to be drawn on whether Messi is the greatest player of all time, citing his friendship with Cristiano Ronaldo and his memories of watching Pele play for the New York Cosmos.

“I got to see Pele play, and he was great,” said the president. “Look, these are great players, and there are others. Look at France, he had a rough game the other day, but he’s [Mbappe] certainly one of the greats. I get this information from my son. My son Barron is a tremendous soccer fan.”

He continued: “You have some other really incredible players playing here, but I would say right now, when you look, I’ve always liked Ronaldo and I’ve always liked Messi. I met Messi just recently, and I have known Cristiano, and they have a pretty good life. I think they have a pretty good life, actually, much easier than my life! I’d like to switch for about a month or so.”

Asked when he would like to see the World Cup return to the United States, Trump said he had “an idea” for Fifa President Gianni Infantino.

“He got it all started, and I brilliantly said: ‘Well, we’ll do it, but you could have a lot of empty stadiums!’ Didn’t work out that way, I think they were 99.9 per cent full, I think they were overflowing actually,” said the president.

He added: “I had a great idea for Gianni. I said: ‘You have to do two countries. So announce us for next time, and then announce another country after that and it’ll take out some of the anger and the shock!’ Now I think it’s a great idea. Based on the numbers, we will be requesting it again immediately. I said, to take out the shock, you could announce another country for the next one... but we have to do this again. You hear that, Gianni?”