Congratulations, Spain — champions of the world

The result

• Final score: 🇪🇸 Spain 1–0 Argentina 🇦🇷, after extra time.
• The goal: Ferran Torres, 106' — a left-footed volley from the centre of the box.
• The turning point: Enzo Fernández sent off on a second yellow in stoppage time, leaving Argentina to play all of extra time with ten men.
• Where: MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey.

How it was won

For 90 minutes this was the stalemate both sides half-expected: Spain with the ball and no way through, Argentina content to have no ball at all. Spain finished with twenty shots. Emiliano Martínez saved eleven of them — a record for a World Cup final, and for long stretches the only reason the game was still goalless.

It broke in stoppage time at the end of normal time, when Enzo Fernández caught a Spanish midfielder late and collected a second yellow. Argentina — already down to their third and fourth choices at centre-back after Lisandro Martínez and Cristian Romero both limped off — had to defend thirty minutes a man short.

They lasted sixteen of them. Barely a minute into the second half of extra time, Ferran Torres, a substitute since the 62nd minute, met the ball on his left foot in the middle of the box and volleyed it high past Martínez. Spain had their second World Cup, sixteen years after their first.

Spain’s road to the final

Spain arrived as reigning European champions and, for many, the best team in the tournament. In the semifinal they delivered a masterclass to beat France 2–0, Mikel Oyarzabal converting an early penalty and Pedro Porro adding a second in the second half. It was Spain’s first World Cup Final since they lifted the trophy in 2010 — and they won this one having conceded a single goal in the entire tournament, a meanness no champion had ever managed before.

Their strength is a midfield widely called the deepest in world football — Ballon d’Or winner Rodri anchoring, Pedri conducting, with Fabián Ruiz, Zubimendi and Dani Olmo in support. Ahead of them, 18-year-old Lamine Yamal bends the game to his will, drawing defenders and freeing space for everyone around him.

Argentina’s road to the final

Argentina came in as defending champions, and their run was pure theatre. They stormed back to beat Egypt 3–2, edged Switzerland 3–1 after extra time — Julián Álvarez striking in the 117th minute — and then beat England 2–1 in the semifinal, Lionel Messi assisting Lautaro Martínez for the winner.

At the centre of it all was Messi. At 39, in what he had described as his final World Cup, he finished the tournament among its leading scorers and extended his all-time record World Cup goal tally. The one thing that escaped him was the ending: back-to-back World Cups, something no team has managed since Brazil in 1962, stayed out of reach by a single goal in the 106th minute.

What it was

Control versus destiny — and control won, but only just, and only after Argentina had been reduced to ten men. It was the final War of Soccer was built for, and it is exactly the feeling the game is built to capture: real football, in your browser.

Spain are world champions. And War of Soccer is out now — free, realistic 3D football you play in your browser, no download, no sign-up.

The full match report → · Messi’s final chapter →