There are football matches and there are football matches where the losing team does not attempt a single shot on target in regulation time, which is the first time that has happened in a World Cup final in the tournament’s history, and Argentina’s head coach and Lionel Messi, 39, spent 90 minutes at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sunday night doing it, before substitute Ferran Torres scored the winner in the second half of extra time to give Spain a 1-0 victory and their second World Cup title.
The scoreline required extra time to produce, which is the only additional fact about the match that makes Argentina’s zero shots on goal in regulation feel more, rather than less, remarkable. Spain conceded once across the entire tournament. Argentina, the defending champions seeking to become the first consecutive World Cup winners since Brazil in 1958 and 1962, managed no shots on target for 90 minutes against that defense, and then had Enzo Fernandez sent off for a foul on Pau Cubarsi just before the end of normal time, entering extra time with 10 men. Torres scored from a rebound in extra time. Argentina had eight goals from Messi in six previous matches. They had zero shots on goal in the final’s regulation time. Both of these things are true about the same team in the same tournament.
Argentine President Javier Milei, a Trump ally who had scheduled a victory tweet in advance of the final, posted “WORLD CELEBRATION” on X immediately after Spain won, having apparently not built a contingency mechanism into his social media strategy. He deleted the tweet. The tweet had already been screenshotted approximately 40,000 times. Milei has not commented on the deletion. The screenshots remain.
Trump was booed when Jennifer Hudson was singing the national anthem, attended the trophy ceremony, photobombed Spain’s celebration photographs, and was subsequently edited out of the official celebration image posted by the Spanish national team’s account, per Raw Story, which is the sequence of events that produces a Raw Story headline and also a complete account of what it is like to attend a sporting event where you endorsed the losing team. Spain’s players lifted the trophy in a photograph that did not include the president who arranged the tournament. The photograph circulated widely.
Messi finished with eight goals and four assists. He will be 43 at the next World Cup. Spain are the first nation to hold the men’s and women’s World Cup simultaneously.
When the losing team has zero shots on goal in regulation, the losing president tweets a celebration post, and the winning team edits the host president out of their photo, what exactly did the final decide?
Sources
HuffPost: Spain Triumphs Over Argentina In 2026 World Cup Final
HuffPost: World Cup Live Updates
Raw Story: Trump week from hell
