19 year-old Kylian Mbappe is one of the unquestionable faves and a central hero of Twitter users’ admiring posts; his impeccable running efforts couldn’t have gone unnoticed either:
Lionel Messi’s fans, meanwhile, appear to resemble those, who take his personality and performance with a pinch of salt:
… and most surely, the question of whether this has indeed been Messi’s last World Cup has struck a nerve:
"Did you know Messi also stars in the famous TV show Narcos?" one user asked, accompanying his rhetorical question with a funny gif:
Meanwhile, one user even suggested that Messi might have preferred to escape post-match publicity:
Some tended to mourn, although tongue-in-cheek, Argentina quitting the quest for a World Cup title:
References to Diego Maradona’s vivid mannerisms are naturally in abundance:
One user suggested mid-way through the match that Maradona had presumably opted for some doping, thereby playing upon the recent jokes over Maradona’s dubious "white powder" bags.
The match’s s top players and the stands even featured in a number of photoshopped collages, whereas some stuck to their own emotions as they were watching the bout:
‘When you say aloud "Go, another goal", that you forget to specify "for France" and that Di Maria scores a goal’
One user recalled Gollum from J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium in connection with Di Maria’s goal:
Some users naturally indulged in speculations over the use of the VAR automated referee system in this match, concluding that it is biased in favor of Europeans:
In the upcoming quater-finals, France will play the winner of today's match between Uruguay and Portugal.