Spain win World Cup as Argentina reign ends in shame

An extra-time goal by Ferran Torres won the World Cup for Spain

Ferran Torres scored the winning goal for Spain in the 106th minute against Argentina. Pic: PA Wire/PA Images

World Cup final: Spain 1 Argentina 0 (AET)

This part of the world breathes scandal. It seeps up through the swamps. ‘The Disgrace of New Jersey’ has long since been copyrighted.

That’s a good thing. Because the reigning champions were every inch of infamy here on a Sunday when their hands came off the World Cup and, so fittingly, into Donald Trump’s.

But let’s not focus on either. Yes Lionel Messi’s magical journey with this tournament ended here but only one of the teams leave with pride — and with their hands on the prize. Spain’s return to the top of the world came after crawling through a 120-minute river of shit.

What decided it all was that rare and precious thing: flow. One minute into the second half of extra time, Lamine Yamal found Pedro Porro who whipped a ball to the back post. Injury denied Nico Williams the opportunity to do much this tournament. On its last day he did more than enough, straining every neck muscle he had and brilliantly heading back for Ferran Torres to lash past Emi Martinez and to decide the game and the gold the only way that felt right. By that stage, Argentina were playing with 10 men after Enzo Fernandez had been sent off for picking up a witless second yellow card at the end of normal time. 

A shame for Messi but shame on his countrymen. 

They ended as they started, more concerned with a street fight than doing their captain or their reign proud. What a peculiar — if historically familiar — transformation on the final day. The tournament’s most prolific scorers made history with not a single shot on goal in 90 wretched minutes. They mustered a couple far too late and deep down will know this was as bad a swansong as any of them could have mustered.

The Argentines had travelled to New York the only way they know how — in throngs of thousands. On Saturday, Times Square became Plaza de Tiempo, a pulsating mass of blue and white. The most flexible wrists in football flicked in unison as the song book went cover to cover. A storm warning was ignored entirely and when the heavens opened they only got louder. Holy water from Diego.

A day later, concerns about air quality from wildfires affecting the game proved unfounded. So blissfully blue-skied and breezy was it that FIFA filled the airspace with uncomfortable particles themselves. They inexplicably went heavy on pre-game pyrotechnics at half one in the afternoon in mid-July.

Marine One flew low over the place too. After the Star Spangled Banner, Trump appeared on the big screens just long enough for the boos to begin but not long enough for them to build. Directly after Trump came Robbie Williams which made sense: a man who some producer somewhere thought was a good idea at a bygone time and we’re still having to put up with him all these years later.

🇪🇸 1-0 🇦🇷

The deadlock has finally been broken. 

Spain have huffed and puffed all game and have finally blown Argentina away as Ferran Torres fires home a beautiful half-volley. 

Watch all 104 games from the #FIFAWorldCup on RTÉ pic.twitter.com/HN9PisvDuD

— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) July 19, 2026

Outside the stadium, Sunday morning had been a shambles, queues of upwards of four hours for staff, media and even half-time performers queuing for upwards of four hours. FIFA had been too focused on the big stuff to sweat the small.

Tom Cruise gave us a pre-match speech about how the past five weeks “showed us why this day belongs to the world”. Grand. Why were we serving only Infantino and Americans with all this nonsense then? Perhaps if we’d known how bad the first half was going to be we wouldn’t have been in quite the hurry to get on with it.

The only time Argentina would have the upper hand between 3pm and 4pm local time was during the anthems. Scaloni’s three changes threatened to make things interesting, the decision not to start Leandro Paredes a truly surprising call. But maybe the champions’ first-half tactical approach — mostly kick Spaniards with gradually greater intensity until a yellow card comes — didn’t require Paredes’ skillset.

We’d hoped the starkly contrasting approaches for the champions of Europe and South America could give the globe something compelling. Instead we got a most fitting celebration of New Jersey’s swamplands. It was stodgy and turgid and didn’t nearly pass the smell test. A pitch not nearly fit for the occasion — yet ironically fit for the desperately patchy first half — hadn’t helped. La Roja were the only ones trying to play on it.

Yamal had an early low and narrow effort which Emiliano Martinez easily dealt with. Marc Cucurella flashed one by a post, Dani Olmo found moments of brief beauty and Argentines focused on mere aggression. Lisandro Martinez, inevitably, was first in the book and then forced off with a related injury. That was about it. Messi had had a dozen touches, none of significance.


As bad as it was and it will still live longer in the memory than a Halftime Show which deserves as much space as we’re about to give it: it was over in 27 minutes and you hoped Lionel Scaloni and Luis de la Fuente used it well.

The finals of 2010 and 1994 and 1990 had all been reached for at half-time, the historic touchpoints for when a decider plumbs the depths. Argentina sides of ’90 and ’86 had played brutally within themselves.

De la Fuente’s men really did look the only ones keen to find a fix and a flow. You knew they had the tools at their disposal. Rodri was stitching up midfield with Olmo always looking to get something going. On 63 minutes he almost did when a shot took a bad bobble off the disgrace of a pitch and Martinez scooped up over his bar. Four minutes later the game finally had a proper chance. Yamal cut to the byline and loft-wedged one into the middle which Ferran Torres met on the full but put straight at Martinez.

For everything the goalkeeper was doing to keep the cynics in it, his namesake was working against them. Enzo’s first yellow was perhaps more telling than the second. With seven minutes to go to find a single shot Argentina could have broken. Instead the Chelsea midfielder dived.

Spain tried to raise the tempo again as Messi hunted the shade. Three minutes into four added, Fernandez found the second yellow he was looking for when he hurtled Pau Cubarsi into the air. Brainless beyond belief.

When Ferran Torres won a free-kick 25 yards out in the last gasps of normal time, the camera found Spain’s heroes of 2010 no longer able to sit in their suite. Xavi, Iker Casillas and co stood and squeezed the backs of chairs. Andres Iniesta was there too and they all knew that one moment of beauty can wash away a day’s brutality. Yamal whipped his effort with fury but it was at the right height for Martinez.

Thirty extra minutes for Argentina to find a single shot, 30 minutes for justice to be done. Two mutually exclusive things. Slovenian referee Slavko Vincic’s idea of justice had been warped all day. His ruling out of Williams’ goal in the first half of extra-time for the softest of Mikel Merino fouls wasn’t remotely in keeping with the contest when Argentina had got away with so much.

Williams wouldn’t allow them away with any more. His brilliant nod back a minute after the restart helped ensure justice was done. At the final whistle Paredes and a couple of other Argentines kicked and dragged at victorious Spaniards. In one way it would have been a fitting final image. Instead we would have the piece of gold in the hands of Rodri and that would feel much better.

Spain (4-2-3-1) Simon; Porro, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella; Rodri, Ruiz; Yamal, Olmo, Baena; Oyarzabal.

Subs: Torres for Oyarzabal (62), Pedri for Ruiz (62), Merino for Olmo (73), Williams for Baena (73), Garcia for Laporte (99), Zubimendi for Rodri (99).

Goals: Torres (106) 

Argentina (4-1-3-2) E Martinez; Montiel, Romero, Lisandro Martinez, Tagliafico; Fernandez; De Paul, Mac Allister, Gonzalez; Messi, Alvarez.

Subs: Otamendi for Lisandro Martinez (44); Paredes for Gonzalez (HT), Molina for Montiel (58), Medina for Romero (70), Simeone for De Paul (70), Senesi for Alvarez (102).

Sent-off: Fernandez (90)

Referee: Slavko Vincic (Slovenia) 

Attendance: 80,663