Spain win the World Cup as Ferran Torres sinks 10-man Argentina

On Sunday in East Rutherford, Spain finally turned an afternoon of one-sided football into a scoreline. Ferran Torres, on as a 62nd-minute substitute, poked home in the 106th minute to beat Argentina 1-0 after extra time and hand Spain their second World Cup, 16 years after the first. Add it to last summer’s European crown and you have the best team on the planet, now with the trophy to prove it.

The super-sub does what the starters couldn’t

Spain had spent 90 minutes battering the door without kicking it in. Twenty shots, a dozen on target, an expected-goals figure knocking on 2.0, and still nothing on the board. Then Torres, teed up by Nico Williams, lashed the ball into the roof of the net barely a minute into the second period of extra time. Mikel Oyarzabal will not mind being the man hooked for him.

Enzo’s red flips the final

The hinge came deep in second-half stoppage time, when Enzo Fernández caught Pau Cubarsí and referee Slavko Vinčić produced a second yellow. Argentina, already chasing shadows, would play the whole of extra time a man short. A 2022 winner sent off in the 2026 final is a cruel bit of symmetry, and it turned a hard night into an impossible one.

Martínez brilliant, Argentina invisible

Spare a thought for Emiliano Martínez, who made 11 saves, the most anyone has managed in a World Cup final, and still finished on the losing side. The other number is the one that stings: Argentina became the first team in World Cup history not to register a single shot across 90 minutes of a final. Two efforts all night, none on target. Lionel Messi, almost certainly playing his last World Cup match, spent the afternoon feeding on scraps that never came.

Final: Spain 1-0 Argentina (a.e.t.), Torres 106'. Second star for La Roja.

See the finished bracket and the road that got them there on the live table.

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