Andy Murray fired a savage tweet at Piers Morgan after Lionel Messi and Argentina triumphed over France in the World Cup final on Sunday.
Morgan is close friends with Cristiano Ronaldo, who, alongside Messi, is widely acknowledged as one of the finest football players of his generation. Morgan, however, has repeatedly insisted that the Portuguese superstar is better than Messi - and he predicted that the defending champions would spoil the 35-year-old's final chance of winning the coveted trophy.
But Morgan's words came back to haunt him as Messi inspired his country to glory in his final World Cup match. His pre-match prediction came after Ronaldo and England were dumped out of the competition in the quarter-finals - and Murray was quick to rub salt into Morgan's wounds on social media.
Tweeting before the match, Morgan said: "PREDICTION: France will beat Argentina 3-1 to win the World Cup. Mbappe will score twice, Griezmann will be MoM and Messi will cry."
In a tweet sent just minutes after Argentina had beaten France 4-2 on penalties, Murray mischievously quipped: "Not sure that @FIFAWorldCup could have gone any worse for you @piersmorgan," complete with a laughing emoji and a thumbs up.
To his credit, Morgan took the jibe well. The TalkTV host responded to the Scotsman with two laughing emojis before adding: "not my best tournament."
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After conducting a bombshell interview with Ronaldo before the tournament, Morgan sang the ex- Manchester United forward's praises before Portugal were stunned in the last eight by plucky underdogs Morocco.
But even with Ronaldo - and England - both out of the competition, Morgan was still vocal on social media and took a number of swipes at Messi and Argentina on Sunday after backing France to get the job done at the Lusail Stadium.
In another tweet that hasn't aged particularly well, Morgan insisted: "The more hysterically over-confident Messi fans grow about his supposedly inevitable triumph today… the more convinced I am he’ll lose."
Morgan also joked that France's hapless start to the match was because Didier Deschamps' side had been "deliberately poisoned". The French squad had been plagued by a virus this week. He tweeted: "It wasn’t a virus, the French team clearly got deliberately poisoned."
While Morgan was unable to land his World Cup final prediction, Mbappe did manage to steal the show by plundering a remarkable hat-trick.
And while the Paris Saint-Germain superstar's treble wasn't enough to inspire France to victory, it did enable him to pip Messi to the coveted Golden Boot award after the frenetic finale.
