Spain are world champions again, and the scoreline barely hinted at how one-sided the final was. Ferran Torres settled it in the 106th minute, and the numbers behind the 1-0 told the fuller story: total control, a goalkeeper besieged, and an Argentina side that never once hit the target.
Luis de la Fuente's side beat the holders after extra time at MetLife Stadium to claim their second world title, and their first since 2010. Add Euro 2024 and it becomes a continental and world double. It was goalless after 90 minutes. It never felt like a match drifting towards penalties.
Two thirds of the ball, twice the passes
Spain had 65% of possession to Argentina's 35%, and turned it into something concrete. They completed 762 passes at 89% accuracy; Argentina managed 358 at 77%. More than double the volume, and cleaner with it. Rodri anchored the middle, and the ball rarely left Spanish feet for long.
This was no smash and grab. Spain had eased past France 2-0 in the semi-final, and the final followed the same script: keep the ball, starve the opponent, wait. Argentina, for all their talent, were made to look ordinary.
Argentina, the defending champions, spent the night chasing. They had beaten England 2-1 to reach the final. Here they could not lay a glove on it.
Nineteen shots, and nothing coming back
Spain had 19 shots to Argentina's two, and the split that mattered was starker still: 12 on target to nil. Argentina did not register a single shot on target in a World Cup final. Not one. They did not muster an attempt of any kind across the 90 minutes of normal time, and the two they finally managed in extra time never forced a save. The expected goals agreed, Spain 1.94 to Argentina 0.20, and the big chances read four to none.
Emi Martinez was, in fairness, magnificent. Argentina's keeper made 11 saves and kept the final goalless deep into extra time. His opposite number, untroubled all night, made none. That it took 106 minutes to break through said more about Martinez than about any Argentine resistance. When the goal finally came it owed nothing to luck: Nico Williams headed across the six-yard box and Ferran Torres finished at the near post, past Martinez.
Argentina's late red card, a dismissal deep in extra time that left them a man short, changed nothing by then. The match was already gone. If anything the fouls column, 25 to Spain's 21, spoke of a side reduced to stopping what it could not match.
Mbappe's boot, Yamal's crown
The scoring race, at least, went elsewhere. Kylian Mbappe took the Golden Boot on 10 goals; Lionel Messi, 39 and playing what many expect was his last World Cup, finished on eight and drew a blank in the final.
Yamal is 19. He ends the summer a world champion, one of the youngest of the modern era, with Ferran Torres the unlikely author of the goal that took Spain there.
For Argentina and Messi, the defence of the crown ends without a shot on target to show for it, a statistic that will sting long after the confetti settles. Spain came, saw and outpassed, outshot and outscored them in every column that counted. The trophy simply followed the data.
Sources
- ESPN
- FIFA
- Yahoo Sports
- Al Jazeera
- Cover photo: Bryan Berlin / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No comments yet