Spain’s moment in history is richly deserved after a truly dominant World Cup performance
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The captain made his way toward the center of the pitch, reached for the arms of his youngest teammate, and fell into a jubilant embrace. In these first moments of Spain’s World Cup celebration, there was so much emotion to unleash, so much accomplishment to acknowledge, and so much celebrating to do.
Rodrigo “Rodri” Hernández and Lamine Yamal wasted no time getting started. The golden glitter and the gilded trophy for their 1-0 win would come soon enough, but joy waits for no one.
And for Spain, the joy of this championship was so many years in the making. From the decade-plus it took to build a deep and talented national team to the 120 minutes it took to outlast Argentina in the final. When it was done, there was little left but exhaustion for both the veteran defender and the teenage superstar. Yet, there near midfield as they met, clasping arms and jumping up and down on the stadium’s green grass, it wasn’t simply that their batteries had been recharged. Their energy radiated outward.
Like magnets, they drew their teammates in, players arriving in ones and twos, the pile morphing into a circle. Together, arms wrapped, they pounded the turf like jackhammers, a human earthquake felt all the way in Spain, never mind around the globe. The trappings of a soon-to-be trophy presentation rolled on the field around them, yet they saw nothing but each other, ensconced in the joy of a moment that will belong now and forever to them.
And thankfully, a little bit to us, too.
This was one of those sporting days that challenges our emotional vocabulary to do it justice, so rife and thick with tension that it almost felt harder to watch it than it was to play it. Of course that isn’t true, and all it took to remember that was watching all-time great Lionel Messi trying so hard across those final, frantic minutes to score just one more goal, seeing him fall to the pitch when it was over knowing almost certainly it was the last time we’d see him on a World Cup stage, listening as Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni broke down in tears at the very thought of ever being around a team like this again.
But what a privilege to see it all in person, where the view from the press box at MetLife Stadium (known for the World Cup as New York/New Jersey Stadium) is so familiar on an NFL level, with the Jets and Giants playing regular hosts to the visiting Patriots. But here, with no hometown rooting interest, and no red, white, and blue Team USA to pull the collective heartstrings either, the experience was a gift. An opportunity to observe from a more neutral perspective, to appreciate once again how the sport itself, regardless of laundry, is what grips our hearts with such ferocity, refusing to let go until the final whistle blows.
What a ride it was on Sunday until that sound finally came.
There is no sport quite so adept as soccer at grinding us down to our final nerve, every disappearing second taking what feels like an eternity, leaving us at the mercy of an official’s watch known only to them. Through regulation time, through stoppage time, through extra time and more stoppage time, here was Spain, beyond dominant, threading passes as if knitting a quilt big enough to cover the entire field, maintaining possession while Argentina chased them around, drawing repeated soccer triangles with a few flicks of the ball.
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But they just couldn’t put one past remarkable Argentine goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, who leapt, darted, stretched, and maneuvered his way to a World Cup final record 11 saves. Martínez, playing despite a broken left ring finger he said multiple doctors told him needed surgery, was on the wrong end of the one stat that best illustrated just how in control Spain was — shots, 20-2. But until Enzo Fernández was sent off for a second yellow card and Spain was able to further exploit Argentina’s diminishing gas tank, until the opening seconds of the second half of extra time when substitute Ferran Torres rifled a shot off a header from Nico Williams, did they finally break through.
“Honestly, I didn’t think too much,” Torres would say later. “I just saw the ball coming to me and I shot with all the power of the Spanish people.”
The Spanish people now set the world’s standard in soccer. In dethroning the reigning champions, the men joined their reigning World Cup champion women’s team. They are the first nation to accomplish that feat, and for the men, it was done by running roughshod over the entire field.
We may remember the way they held the all-time GOAT Messi from making any tangible impact, and we may remember the postgame embrace between the 39-year-old and the 19-year-old Lamal as a metaphorical passing of the soccer torch. But mostly, we will remember a team that would not be denied.
We will remember how a squad built on precision, on timing, on skill, and on connection set such a compelling championship standard. They won a World Cup without trailing at any point in any of their eight games. They won by conceding only one goal throughout. They won behind coach Luis de la Fuente, who, in adding the World Cup to the five major titles (including the 2024 Euros) he has now won for Spain, proved to possess the perfect touch.
As he told them before kickoff Sunday, “Gentlemen, we have an appointment with history. We want to be there first.”
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