🏆 World Cup 2026 · The Final

SPAIN ARE
WORLD CHAMPIONS
TORRES SINKS ARGENTINA
IN EXTRA TIME

Ninety goalless minutes, an Argentina red card in stoppage time, and then a substitute in the 106th. Ferran Torres won the 2026 World Cup for Spain at MetLife Stadium and closed out the first 48-team tournament with the second world title in Spanish history.

July 19, 2026 · GO2CUP Editorial

Sunday, July 19, 2026
🏆 World Cup Final
Spain Spain 1–0 Argentina Argentina
After extra time · MetLife Stadium, NY/NJ
Ferran Torres 106' (sub) Assist: Nico Williams Enzo Fernández sent off 90+3' E. Martínez 11 saves — a final record Spain's 2nd title · 2010, 2026

For ninety minutes the 2026 World Cup final gave up nothing. Spain kept the ball and could not turn it into a goal. Argentina defended and countered and could not find the finish. The scoreboard at MetLife Stadium read 0–0 deep into stoppage time.

Then Argentina lost Enzo Fernández, sent off in the third minute of added time. Ten men, extra time, and a Spain side that had been probing all evening.

Ferran Torres had come off the bench. In the 106th minute, Nico Williams found him, and he scored the only goal of the final.

Argentina had Emiliano Martínez, and he was extraordinary. The goalkeeper made eleven saves — the most any goalkeeper has made in a World Cup final. It was not enough, and that is the cruelty of a one-goal final: the best individual performance on the pitch ended on the losing side.

Spain finished the tournament unbeaten. It is their second World Cup, sixteen years after their first in 2010.

106'
Ferran Torres, on as a substitute, scored the only goal of the final.
11
Saves by Emiliano Martínez — a record for a World Cup final.
2
World Cups for Spain: 2010 and 2026.
3
World Cup finals played by Lionel Messi.

Messi's third final

This was Lionel Messi's third World Cup final, and it is widely expected to have been his last. He does not leave the tournament with a second winner's medal. He leaves it having taken Argentina back to the final at the end of a career that has already outlasted most of the arguments about it.

What happened after the whistle

The final did not end cleanly. Scuffles broke out between players after the final whistle, and the medal ceremony that followed became a story of its own.

Reported separately

GO2CUP covered the post-match incidents and the medal ceremony in a separate factual report: Ugly End: Brawl and Turned Backs Mar Spain's Coronation, along with FIFA's subsequent investigation.

The rest of Final Weekend

The day before, England beat France 6–4 in Miami in the highest-scoring third-place match in World Cup history. Every result from the 2026 tournament is archived on the GO2CUP scoreboard.

Reporting note

GO2CUP is an independent fan site, not a wire service. Match facts on this page follow the results and records reported by neutral international news outlets covering the final. Where a claim is disputed or unconfirmed, we say so.