FOOTBALL – FERRAN Torres scored in the 106th minute to lift Spain to their second World Cup title with a 1-0 win over gutsy, 10-man Argentina in yesterday’s final.
Torres’ deserved winner came 16 years and eight days after Andres Iniesta also scored in extra time to lift the Spaniards to their first World Championship with a 1-0 victory over the Netherlands.
It came on La Roja’s 20th shot of the contest against the defending champions, who failed to manage any to that point and struggled to wrest possession away from their superior Iberian opponents.
That was true at even strength and became more difficult when the Albiceleste’s numbers were reduced when Enzo Fernandez’s late challenge of Pau Cubarsi left referee Slavko Vincic no choice but to produce a second caution just before the end of normal time. Spain remain the only nation ever to win the European Championship and World Cup in successive tournaments, having now done so a second time. They are also the first World Cup champion ever to concede only once across an entire tournament.
Lionel Messi’s Argentina failed to earn a title for the first time in three major tournaments, having also captured the 2021 and 2024 Copa Americas on either side of their 2022 World Cup triumph.
The 39-year-old, eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi finished the competition with eight goals and four assists, but had little time on the ball until Spain finally took the lead and never seriously looked like lifting his side to another great moment as he has so many times in the last two World Cup cycles.
Emi Martinez made 11 saves for the Albiceleste, who fell short in their bid to be the first consecutive World Cup champions since Brazil won the 1958 and 1962 titles.
What had felt so difficult for the first 105 minutes suddenly looked easy after 37 seconds of play in the second period of extra time.
Pedro Porro curled in an outswinging cross from the left to the back post. Nico Williams won the header and nodded it back into space, and Torres hammered a half-volley at last past the flailing Martinez. It was his only goal of the tournament, making him the seventh player to score during a tournament in which his side never trailed.
Meanwhile, French superstar Kylian Mbappe became the first player to win multiple Fifa World Cup Golden Boot awards after Spain shut out Argentina in the final.
Mbappe finished with 10 goals for the tournament after scoring twice in France’s 6-4 loss to England on Saturday in the third-place match.
His only competition still active was Messi, who was searching for his first Golden Boot along with trying to guide Argentina to a second consecutive World Cup.
Messi and Argentina defeated Mbappe and France on penalty kicks in the 2022 final in Qatar. But Argentina could not muster a shot on goal against Spain’s stalwart defense and had just two total shots, both coming late in the match.
Messi went scoreless for the third match in a row. He had collected eight goals across the three group-stage matches, the round of 32 and the round of 16.
At 27, Mbappe already can call himself the greatest goal-scorer in World Cup history.
His two second-half goals on Saturday pushed him past Messi for the all-time tournament record with 22 in just 22 matches. Messi – the first to break German Miroslav Klose’s career record early in the tournament before Mbappe caught up – stayed at 21 and may have played his final World Cup match yesterday at 39 years old.
Eight of Mbappe’s 10 goals this summer came in braces. He scored twice against Iraq, Senegal, Sweden and finally England. He was the first with 10 goals in a single World Cup since Gerd Muller of Germany in 1970.
&uuid=(email))