Just in case you weren’t aware, the 2026 World Cup final ended Spain 1 Argentina 0 after extra time.
If you didn’t watch this 104th game of these finals, there is so much for you to catch up on.
One team turned up to try and win a game of football.
One team turned up to try and turn this into an unwatchable spectacle and as well as boring those watching to death, to somehow scrap and cheat their way to another trophy.
The referee was woeful. Clearly trying everything he could not to give cards to the Argentina players but even he was forced to give one to that Man U rat Martinez just before half-time.
Basically though, just as has happened throughout the tournament, Argentina were allowed to try and bully and intimidate the opposition as much as they could.
Spain were struggling to create many clear chances against an opposition who were acting like the equivalent of a seventh tier club (apologies to all 7th tier English clubs for comparing you to Argentina) in England that ends up getting drawn away to Manchester City in the FA Cup.
Argentina made pretty much no attempt to try and threaten the opposition goal preferring instead to only try and threaten and intimidate the opposition players.
It was a bit like earlier in the competition when Paraguay behaved appallingly and tried to cheat their way to a win over France, as the referee refused to book any of their players, then ended up booking three of France’s when they said enough was enough and retaliated. The Spanish players though somehow retained their cool and not a single one of them received a card in the more than two hours of ‘football’ we witnessed.
I can’t comment on the half-time farcical special show. We spent the half hour watching something we had recorded before switching back onto the (mis)match.
Argentina ended up getting six yellow cards across the entire game but that only scratched the surface of what they should have got. They ended up with a red card as well, just before the final whistle on normal time.
The Chelsea rat Fernandez with an appalling cowardly challenge on Cubarsi that sent the Barcelona defender into orbit and lucky he wasn’t seriously injured. Fernandez off for a second yellow but should have been an automatic red for me.
There should have been at least one other red for the cheats but thankfully the one proved enough to help decide the match, though in reality going down to ten men didn’t really handicap Argentina much. As their game plan remained exactly the same, refusing to try to attack and defend deep with the whole team.
There was still this horrible fear that somehow Argentina would succeed in using these tactics to fluke their way to a toss of the coin penalty shoot out.
So the relief was immense when on 106 minutes a deep cross saw the Aston Villa rat Martinez inexplicably not follow the ball and deal with it, instead Nico Williams heading it back for Ferren Torres to lash it into the roof of the net. I was shouting and screaming at the TV and my relief on another level, I can only imagine how the Spain fans inside the stadium at that moment as they’d no doubt feared the cheats could somehow get to the end with the match goalless.
In over two hours of play, Argentina didn’t have a single effort on target, Spain had 12.
Argentina hadn’t had a shot of any description until the final few minutes of added time when they had nothing to lose and sent two efforts thankfully off target, Spain had 20 shots in total.
Facing such a packed defence Spain had understandably struggled to get into the opposition box on a regular basis, their players touching the ball 34 times in the Argentina penalty area. The Argentina player managed to touch the ball only eight times in the Spain penalty area and I am amazed that it is even that many, as I struggle to remember them getting even near the opposition box for most of the game.
The behaviour of the Argentina players was entirely predictable after the final whistle as well. Appalling behaviour as they were the epitome of bad losers. Paredes summing them up when he physically assaulted a number of Spain players and was given a post-match red card.
Lionel Messi was exposed this World Cup for being no better than the rest of them, disgusting behaviour when trying to get a Spain player red carded in the final, a total lack of class after the final whistle, embarrassingly holding up that flag after winning the semi-final and so on.
The Argentina football culture lauds cheating and we have seen it so often, Diego Maradona the king of the cheats and somebody who for me can never be called a ‘Great’ player. He was supremely talented but a cheat first and foremost.
Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa led the flow of high profile Argentina players to English football and I honestly struggle to think of any/many I admire since then, apart from of course Fabricio Coloccini and Jonas Gutierrez, Newcastle United getting the only two canny Argentina players since Tottenham signed their duo back in the day.
The odious Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino did their best to take centre stage and ruin the post-match ceremony and celebrations. The old bloke in a suit and blindingly white trainers, Infantino, eventually ushering away his mate Donald like your grandad who had inadvertently wandered into a wedding photo that should be featuring just the bride and groom.
Spain were deservedly centre stage and will be rightly remembered as great winners of this 2026 World Cup. Argentina remembered for representing everything that is worst in football, alongside Trump and Infantino.
A poll on The Mag asked fans who they wanted to win the 2026 World Cup final and 94% went Spain, with 6% Argentina. I couldn’t comprehend that outcome. How on earth did as many as 6% want them to win???