MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford New Jersey
Full Match Highlights (FIFA/YouTube) | Full Match Stats — Opta Analyst | ESPN Match Report
In this much anticipated final, it was never in doubt that Spain’s ability to hold on to the ball coupled with their suffocating defense would be an extraordinary factor (the best defense is a good offense concept so the two are not mutually exclusive) and that this would make them as slight favorites to win the game.
Counter to that was that Argentina was a team of destiny, a team fueled by emotion and togetherness (many of the starters won it all in 2022), a team that would enjoy overwhelming fan support (the home field advantage theory), and that by virtue of having the best player on the planet, let alone on the pitch, would be sufficient to eek out a victory despite being dominated by their opponents.
The former narrative prevailed and it wasn’t even close. This game was not a game for the ages if you judge games by their competitiveness and the drama they produce. It was a game for the ages for the victors for their utter and complete domination, for their ability to reduce the world’s greatest player to a mere participant, and to put a drubbing so complete that the opposing team just couldn’t help but lose its mind after it was all over.
By completely erasing Messi from the equation early on (he had 3 touches in the first 15 minutes with the kickoff counting as the first), Spain delivered the equivalent of a knock-down (not out) blow in the first minute of a boxing match. Argentina would get off the mat, but barely survive the rest of the game, holding on to dear life using every dirty little trick in the book in the hope of holding Spain for as long as it took to get to the vaunted penalty kick shootout, which, fortunately, never came. Although it must be said that had Argentina’s Enzo Fernandez not drawn the stupidest of yellow cards for dissent in the first half, and thus earning a red-card for an obvious second yellow foul on Kubarsi in extra time, Argentina may have been able to hold on. And there’s absolutely nothing that would have guaranteed Spain winning the shootout. Had Argentina been able to hold out 15 more minutes and won the PK shootout, it would have been the greatest travesty in the history of World Cup finals, or maybe even of all time.
After Ferran Torres scored in the 106th minute, after Spain had been knocking on the door the entire game, and after, it must be said, they had had a goal annulled due to a stepping on the boot foul from Mikel Merino on Otamendi in the box in yet another example of FIFA’s refereeing favoritism towards Argentina on debated plays that permeated the entire tournament, Spain looked like it had already won the game. But at this point, a desperate Argentina, started to actually play football, finally producing its only 2 shots of the game, and for a minute, it looked like they would tie the game. These last minutes were, suffice it to say, quite tense.
In the end Spain did prevail. The statistics tell a tale of inexplicable dominance, of superiority on every level of the game: defense, passing, possession, chances created, composure, etc. Two statistics stand out: field tilt of 83.3 % and number of passes completed (763 for Spain, 357 for Argentina). Had it not been for Martinez’s historic night, this could easily have been a 3 or 4 to nil rout.
At the end, as Spain’s players poured out to celebrate, things got ugly. Argentinian players raced around trying to find anybody to punch, kick, and even choke. One particular player, Leandro Paredes, grabbed Eric Garcia by the throat and threw Gabi to the ground. (This is the same player who started a fight in Qatar 4 years ago against the Netherlands when he fouled a Dutch player and after doing so kicked the ball forcefully at the Dutch bench, causing a bench learning brawl baseball players can identify with, and in the process, causing world-wide opinion that Argentina, while a very talented side, also possessed a darker side to them.) Other scuffles broke out and Argentinian coach Scaloni finally was able to restrain his payers and stop the madness. During the fracas, Messi sat all by himself on the other side of the pitch, not willing to participate in the atrocious display of bad sportsmanship exhibited by many of his teammates. Paredes earned a red card for his action after the game although FIFA, for some odd reason, retracted it as an administrative error.
The trophy presentation was even more bizarre, with the President of the United States trying to join the Spaniards in their celebration, only to be escorted out by his new best friend, FIFAs president Infantino. And as a final insult, as Spain celebrated, Argentina turned their back, unable or unwilling to applaud the champions.
In the end analysis, none of the noise mattered. Spain collected their second star in what will be remembered as a defense for the ages.
Full Match Highlights (FIFA/YouTube) | Full Match Stats — Opta Analyst | ESPN Match Report
From the opening whistle at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, it was clear this was going to be a different kind of final. Not the open, end-to-end thriller the neutral had hoped for. Something more clinical. More suffocating. More Spanish.
Spain possessed. Argentina could not. From the very first exchanges, Rodri and Fabián Ruiz imposed themselves in midfield, controlling the tempo and denying Argentina any opportunity to build rhythm through their usual channels. Scaloni’s side were forced to go direct — long balls over the top, hoping that Julián Álvarez or Lautaro Martínez could hold something up, could bring Messi into the game. It did not work. Within ten minutes the pattern was already set and already alarming.
By the 20-minute mark, the most unsettling statistic of the game had already declared itself. Messi had touched the ball just three times. Three touches. For the greatest player in the history of the sport, in a World Cup final. The extended feeling-out period that both teams went through in the opening quarter served Spain perfectly and Argentina disastrously — because Messi cannot beat you if he doesn’t have the ball, and Spain had the ball almost all of the time. The “Olés” were already beginning to ring around the stadium from the Spain supporters as possession ticked up and up in their favour.
At 40 minutes, another landmark — and not a welcome one. Argentina had still not registered a single shot on goal, making them the first team on record to fail to attempt a shot in 90 minutes of a World Cup final since records began in 1966. Spain, meanwhile, had produced two shots on goal and were knocking with increasing confidence. An early opening had seen Yamal’s effort take a deflection before Martínez adjusted well to make the save — the first of what would become a historic catalogue of stops.
The first half ended goalless, but the scoreline was flattering to Argentina. What had transpired was a defence versus attack exercise as the holders showed spirit but precious little else. The question at the break was not whether Spain would score, but when — and whether Martínez could hold out long enough for Argentina to somehow manufacture a chance from nothing.
The second half began with Spain continuing to knock. Yamal created an excellent opportunity for Torres after 67 minutes but he headed too close to Martínez, who gathered comfortably. Pau Cubarsi and substitutes Pedri and Williams all drew saves from the Argentine custodian as the pressure continued. By the hour mark, Martínez had made five saves. Spain were loading the cannon shot by shot, corner by corner, and each time the Argentine goalkeeper threw himself in the way. It was a one-man resistance. It could not go on forever — but it went on longer than anyone had any right to expect.
Spain thought they had taken the lead when Williams fired into the net, but the goal was ruled out for a foul on Otamendi by Merino in the build-up. The crowd groaned. The Argentine bench exhaled. VAR, for once, working against the tournament’s narrative rather than with it.
Then came the two-minute sequence in stoppage time at the end of regulation that changed everything.
First: Enzo Fernández. Already on a yellow card received earlier for dissent, his late challenge sent Pau Cubarsi twisting and flying into the air before crashing to the turf — a brainless, inexcusable foul at the worst possible moment. Second yellow. Red card. Fernández became the sixth player to be sent off in a World Cup final, with 50% of those ejections belonging to Argentine players — Monzón and Dezotti in 1990, and now Enzo in 2026.
Then: Yamal. Standing over a free kick 25 yards from goal, in the last seconds of normal time. The stadium fell quiet. He struck it with ferocious precision — a vicious, dipping delivery destined for the top corner. Martínez, who had spent 94 minutes walling off Spain’s best efforts, launched himself to his right and turned it over the bar with a flying save that drew a gasp from every corner of the stadium. By that point he had broken the championship-game record of eight saves. He would finish with 11 — the most by any goalkeeper on record in a FIFA World Cup final.
Extra time. Ten men versus eleven. Argentina, paradoxically, finally began to attack — because they had no other choice. Spain had the harder time holding the ball now as Argentina threw bodies forward in desperation for the first time all evening. Two shots — their first of the entire game, arriving after 116 minutes of play. And then the clearest chance Argentina would get all night.
Giuliano Simeone, unmarked in the centre of the penalty area, received the ball in space — the kind of position he had repeatedly threatened from throughout the tournament. This was the moment. He shot. It went well above the crossbar — not close, not unlucky, but the kind of miss that happens when a team has spent 116 minutes without a shot and suddenly finds itself asked to deliver in the most important moment of its life. The chance was gone. Argentina would not get another.
Then, 37 seconds into the second period of extra time — at 106′ — it was over.
Pedro Porro crossed from the right. Nico Williams, arriving at the far post, nodded it down with perfect weight. Ferran Torres, on as a substitute, met it with a first-time shot rocketed into the roof of the net. Martínez had no chance. “Honestly I did not think too much,” Torres said on the Fox broadcast afterward. “I just saw the ball coming to me and I shot with the power of all the Spanish people.”
Torres became just the second substitute to score the winning goal in a World Cup final, after Mario Götze in 2014 — also against Argentina. History has a sense of humour.
Five minutes of injury time were added at 120′. Argentina’s first shot on goal — their first in the entire match — had come from Messi in the 117th minute. Spain held. The final whistle blew. Ugly scenes followed as Argentina players lashed out at Spanish players celebrating, the raw grief of a defeated team finding no elegant exit. Spain finished with an xG of 1.94 from 20 shots. Argentina’s tally: 0.2 from two attempts.
Spain allowed just one goal in the entire tournament — their seventh clean sheet — and finished undefeated, having begun the whole campaign with a 0-0 draw against Cape Verde in the opening game. De la Fuente, the oldest manager to win the World Cup, completed a remarkable journey from that opening stumble to the summit of world football. He is now 14-0-1 as Spain’s manager. The bus that left Cape Verde without a result arrived in New Jersey with the trophy.
PKs:
Unai Simon 7 clean sheets. Most of any tournament. Golden glove.
Kubarsi best young player. Great analysis of his brilliant mind:
Rodri best player of tournament. Approaching best defensive midfielder of all time status.
Messi crying after receiving his medal was very telling of how much he wanted to win, how much he cared. Although I rooted for Spain, I think Messi was also deserving of a title, but unfortunately, his team, in the end, was not good enough today.
Great retrospective on the final. The good (Spain’s excellence) and the bad (Argentina’s performance on and off the field, the halftime show, 47’s pathetic lingering on the winner’s stage)
Argentinian players unveiled a sheet with the words: “The Malvinas have been, are, and will always be Argentinian.” after the game against England. Another example of how fervent nationalism and the politics it evokes is a stronger force than the game itself.
The game was preceded by a rousing rendition of Star Spangled Banner followed by stupid ass rendition of FIFA anthem “Desire”. The contrast of excellence to corniness couldn’t be starker.
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