Spain Crowned World Champions After Epic Final

Simon Carver

Welcome back everybody. I'm Simon Carver.

Billy Galligan - Author

And I'm Billy Galligan. And Spain are World Champions.

Simon Carver

Say it again.

Billy Galligan - Author

Spain are World Champions. For the second time. Sixteen years after their first. One-nil after extra time against Argentina in New York. And it was every bit as dramatic as this tournament deserved.

Simon Carver

Let's set the scene first. New York New Jersey Stadium. The biggest stage in world football. Eighty thousand people. Argentina, the defending champions, Lionel Messi's team, attempting to become the first side since Brazil in 1958 and 1962 to win back-to-back World Cups. Spain, the most dominant team of the tournament, one goal conceded in seven games going into the final, hungry for their second title.

Billy Galligan - Author

I watched it on a hundred and fifty inch screen with surround sound, food, drinks and decorations. I am not ashamed of that. This deserved the full production.

Simon Carver

And the full production is what the game delivered. Just not in the way anyone expected.

Billy Galligan - Author

From the very first whistle Spain were the better team. Rodri and Fabián Ruiz controlling midfield with the kind of authority that makes opposition managers age visibly. Yamal causing problems down the right. Spain creating chance after chance.

Simon Carver

And Emiliano Martínez standing between them and the goal like a man possessed.

Billy Galligan - Author

Martínez. Twelve saves in a World Cup final. Twelve. He made saves that had no right to be saves. Reflex stops, diving full-length, positioning, command of his area — everything a goalkeeper can offer, he offered it. On any other night he might have been the story of the final regardless of the result.

Simon Carver

Argentina's xG was 0.2 from just two attempts. Spain's was 1.94 from twenty shots. Those numbers tell you everything about how the game went and absolutely nothing about why it stayed goalless for so long.

Billy Galligan - Author

Because Martínez was the reason. One man, standing in a goal, refusing to let Spain through. It was one of the greatest individual performances in World Cup final history. On the losing side.

Simon Carver

And then Messi. Looking for the moment on the counterattack. Looking for the goal that would have drawn him level with Mbappé in the golden boot race. Looking for one last act of magic on the biggest stage.

Billy Galligan - Author

It didn't come. And watching Messi not quite finding that moment in what is almost certainly his last World Cup game was one of the more emotional things about the whole evening. He gave everything. Argentina gave everything. It just wasn't enough.

Simon Carver

And then in second half stoppage time — the moment that changed the game. Enzo Fernández, a second yellow card. Argentina down to ten men. And from that moment Spain were the only side who could win it.

Billy Galligan - Author

Williams thought he'd scored. The ball hit the net, Spain celebrated, and then VAR stepped in — a foul by Merino on Otamendi in the build-up. Goal ruled out. Spain's agony continued.

Simon Carver

And then extra time. The first fifteen minutes went by without a goal. Argentina defending with everything they had, ten men, backs against the wall, heart and determination making up for everything they were missing technically.

Billy Galligan - Author

And then. Thirty-seven seconds into the second half of extra time. Williams teed up Ferran Torres. Torres rifled it into the roof of the net. One-nil. Spain lead.

Simon Carver

Ferran Torres. Who came on as a substitute. Who scored the only goal of the match. Who will be remembered forever in Spain for that one moment in New York.

Billy Galligan - Author

There's a pattern emerging here. Merino scored the late winners against Portugal and Belgium. Torres scores the winner in the final. Spain winning this tournament on the goals of their substitutes as much as their starters. The depth of that squad is extraordinary.

Simon Carver

Spain held on. Argentina pushed desperately for an equaliser with nine men behind the ball and one eye on the clock. It didn't come. The final whistle blew. And Spain were World Champions.

Billy Galligan - Author

One goal conceded in eight games. One. The fewest ever by a World Cup winning team. A defensive record that may stand forever. Unai Simón wins the Golden Glove and deserves every bit of it.

Simon Carver

And the statistics that will follow Spain around forever — the first nation to simultaneously hold both the men's and women's FIFA World Cup titles. Their 38-match unbeaten run continues. A team at the absolute peak of their powers.

Billy Galligan - Author

And yet you can't talk about Spain winning without talking about what it means that Argentina lost. Messi's last World Cup. The greatest player who ever lived, possibly — and I say that having watched Maradona, Pelé on film, Cruyff — walking off a World Cup pitch for the final time without the trophy.

Simon Carver

He has two World Cup finals now. Won one, lost one. An extraordinary legacy regardless. But football is cruel sometimes and this was one of those nights.

Billy Galligan - Author

It is cruel. And Martínez's twelve saves makes it even more so — Argentina had the performance of their goalkeeper. They just didn't have the goal.

Simon Carver

Yamal. We should talk about Yamal.

Billy Galligan - Author

Nineteen years old. World Cup winner. In his first tournament. The boy in the photograph with Messi — the toddler who grew up to play against his idol in a World Cup final and come out on the winning side. That story is going to be told for decades.

Simon Carver

The passing of the torch. Whether Messi would agree with that framing or not — and he might not, given that he'd presumably have preferred to win — the symbolism is undeniable. The greatest of one generation losing to the emerging star of the next, on the biggest stage imaginable.

Billy Galligan - Author

Football does this. Every generation thinks the current great is unreplaceable and then the next one arrives and you realise the game keeps producing genius. It always has. It always will.

Simon Carver

So Spain are World Champions. Ferran Torres is the hero. Martínez is the tragic hero. Messi walks off into the sunset. And Yamal's era begins.

Billy Galligan - Author

And somewhere in New York, eighty thousand people are trying to process what they just witnessed. And somewhere in Tucker, Georgia, a Dublin man who has been watching World Cups for nearly fifty years is sitting in front of a hundred and fifty inch screen trying to do the same.

Simon Carver

How do you feel, Billy?

Billy Galligan - Author

Honestly? In awe. Of the football, of the tournament, of what sport can do when it's at its very best. I've been watching World Cups since 1978. This one — this whole tournament — belongs in the conversation for the greatest ever. The stories it gave us. The moments. The drama.

Simon Carver

Cape Verde. Pico Lopes from Crumlin.

Billy Galligan - Author

Algeria and Austria, three-three, Iran in and out and in and out in four minutes of stoppage time.

Simon Carver

England ten men at the Azteca.

Billy Galligan - Author

Norway beating Brazil. Paraguay beating Germany. Morocco beating the Netherlands.

Simon Carver

Messi breaking every record in the book only for Mbappé to break the biggest one of all in a third-place play-off.

Billy Galligan - Author

A third-place play-off that ended six-four. Six-four. In a game nobody wanted to play in.

Simon Carver

And then this. One-nil after extra time. Martínez making twelve saves. Torres scoring thirty-seven seconds into the second period of extra time. Spain World Champions.

Billy Galligan - Author

What a tournament. What a final. What a game.

Simon Carver

We'll be back tomorrow with the full deep dive. Every story. Every record. Every moment from the first red card in Mexico to the final whistle in New York.

Billy Galligan - Author

Don't miss it. And congratulations to Spain. World Champions 2026.

Simon Carver

See you tomorrow.