Spain are world champions! Ferrán Torres sinks Argentina in extra time (1-0) to give La Roja a second star

Spain are world champions. At the MetLife Stadium, on the edge of New York, La Roja wrote the greatest page of their recent history by beating Argentina 1-0 in extra time to lift the second World Cup in their history, sixteen years on from South Africa 2010. A Ferrán Torres goal on 106 minutes, after an agonising final they dominated from start to finish, crowned the finest generation Spanish football has ever produced.

Luis de la Fuente went with a 4-1-2-3 featuring Unai Simón in goal; Pedro Porro, Pau Cubarsí, Aymeric Laporte and Marc Cucurella in defence; Rodri anchoring; Dani Olmo and Fabián Ruiz ahead of him; and a front three of Lamine Yamal, Mikel Oyarzabal and Álex Baena. Opposite, Lionel Scaloni set the world champions up in a 4-4-2 with Emiliano Martínez in goal, Montiel, Cristian Romero, Lisandro Martínez and Tagliafico at the back, De Paul, Enzo Fernández, Mac Allister and Nico González in midfield, and the Lionel Messi-Julián Álvarez pairing up top.

The game had only one master. Spain took charge from the first minute with their possession football —finishing with 65% of the ball—, pinned Argentina into their own half and created chance after chance: 20 shots, twelve of them on target, against just two Argentine efforts, none on goal. The Albiceleste, true to their character, sat deep, held on and trusted in their resilience and in a Messi moment that never came.

If the 0-0 held until the end of the 90 minutes it was down to one name: Emiliano 'Dibu' Martínez. The Argentine goalkeeper produced a colossal display, saving one effort after another and keeping his side alive when the scoreboard was screaming for a Spanish goal. His wall gradually filled with Argentine cards —Lisandro Martínez, Paredes, Enzo Fernández, Cristian Romero, Mac Allister and even the bench with Scaloni were booked— in an increasingly rough, niggly contest.

With it goalless, the game went to extra time, and there De la Fuente used his bench to perfection. On 106 minutes came the moment of glory: Pedro Porro floated a cross from the right, Nico Williams —on as a substitute— won the header and nodded it into the heart of the box, and there another replacement, Ferrán Torres, arrived to finally beat the Dibu Martínez and spark Spanish bedlam (1-0). This time not even the best Martínez could stop it. The goal, the work of two impact substitutes, captured the strength in depth of a Spain side that never dropped their intensity.

Argentina, shaken, went looking for the heroics of other nights in the closing minutes, but had to do so with ten men: Enzo Fernández, already booked, was shown a second yellow in extra time and left the Albiceleste a man down just when they most needed the equaliser. They ran once more into Spanish organisation and a solid Unai Simón, and this time there was no comeback. The world champions surrender the crown they won in Qatar 2022 and are denied the historic encore Messi was chasing; the captain bows out of this World Cup with eight goals and the sense of having given everything.

Spain, by contrast, complete a peerless cycle. Luis de la Fuente's team won all five knockout ties without losing a single game —3-0 against Austria, 1-0 against Portugal, 2-1 against Belgium, 2-0 against France and 1-0 against Argentina— and string together Euro 2024 and the 2026 World Cup, a double within the reach of very few. The generation of Lamine Yamal, Pedri, Rodri and Cubarsí, with the craft of Oyarzabal and the goals of their substitutes, confirm themselves as the greatest in the history of Spanish football.

The race for the Golden Boot was also settled: with no Messi goal in the final, the top-scorer award goes to Kylian Mbappé, who ended the tournament on ten after his brace in the third-place play-off. But the night, and the star, belonged to Spain. In New York, sixteen years on, La Roja touch the sky once more.