{"id":217716,"date":"2026-07-20T04:13:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/spain-win-2026-world-cup-to-end-messi-and-argentinas-dream-live-updates-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T04:13:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:13:20","slug":"spain-win-2026-world-cup-to-end-messi-and-argentinas-dream-live-updates-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/spain-win-2026-world-cup-to-end-messi-and-argentinas-dream-live-updates-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain win 2026 World Cup to end Messi and Argentina\u2019s dream: Live updates – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Cup
FIFA World
Cup 2026
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Nos diste las alegr\u00edas m\u00e1s grandes de nuestras vidas. Gracias por la entrega, por la magia y por dar la vida hasta el \u00faltimo segundo 🙌<\/p>\n

\u00a1Te amamos para siempre, Leo! 🩵🤍 pic.twitter.com\/YxcYJbwuPl<\/a>
Shackle Lionel Messi<\/strong>, shackle Argentina.
Spain are the first side to keep the tournament\u2019s star player quiet, a feat that nullified the rest of Lionel Scaloni\u2019s attack. He took just 15 touches in the first half, his lowest tally across the last three World Cups, with his pass from kick-off his sole contribution in the opening quarter of an hour.
By dominating possession and ferociously hunting it back, Spain smothered Argentina, cutting off the supply line to their talisman.
Aware that Messi, for all his gifts, has lost that explosive yard of pace at 39 years old, Spain pushed their defensive line high, condensing the pitch. When Messi was played through early on, goalkeeper Unai Simon raced off his line, reaching the ball first near the centre circle.
Against this pressure Messi, as he does, scanned the pitch for dangerous pockets of space, but was cut off each time. Just before the hydration break in the first half, he finally received the ball on the turn in midfield, only for Rodri to barge into him and concede a foul.
Against England and Egypt, Messi had turned the game by drifting out to the right, a tactic he tried again here. Spain were wise to it, quickly doubling up and crowding him out.
But Messi\u2019s lack of influence owed less to his own ineffectiveness than to Spain\u2019s dominance, which starved him of the ball, leaving him to feed off scraps.
It took just over 10 minutes for Enzo Fernandez <\/strong>to write himself into the history books \u2014 for all the wrong reasons.
The Argentina midfielder was first booked for dissent. After being eased off the ball by Rodri in the centre circle, he collapsed to the floor and appealed for a foul. When the referee Slavko Vincic ignored his pleas, he aggressively swung his arms, showing his disgust. Vincic brandished a yellow card.
In added time at the end of 90 minutes. A loose ball landed between Fernandez and Spain defender Cubarsi. The latter was always the favourite for it and got there first. Fernandez should have pulled out but didn\u2019t, sending Cubarsi\u2019s body tumbling through the air.
It was beyond brainless from the Chelsea midfielder. It also forced Argentina into a change of shape. Initially, Julian Alvarez dropped even deeper than he had been. Then, as Spain tightened their grip in extra time, Lionel Scaloni threw on an extra defender, leaving Messi alone up front.
From that point, it was penalties or nothing from Argentina. And when Torres scored, Fernandez\u2019s idiocy only came into greater focus.
There was a moment, in the dying embers of regular time, when Lionel Messi<\/strong> sprang to life. He had spent most of the preceding 90 minutes in glorious isolation, watching from afar as Spain passed the Argentina defence into a state of hypnosis. He barely touched the ball.
But a player of Messi's class never stays quiet for long. And so, just after Fernandez\u2019s red card, he dug deep … and grassed up Marc Cucurella for speaking to him with his hand over his mouth. The referee was not moved.
Messi has put in some of the great World Cup performances. A few of them have come this summer. This was not even within a million miles of being one of them.
This is a vanishingly rare thing to say about Messi \u2014 something that feels close to sacrilegious \u2014 but he simply did not influence this match. Messi was well marshalled. And Argentina had nothing else.
A decade ago, Messi walked out of the MetLife Stadium convinced he\u2019d played his final international game, Argentina having lost the 2016 Copa America final to Chile. \u201cIt\u2019s over,\u201d he said after that match. He was not, at that point, universally loved in his homeland.
It wasn\u2019t over and today, he was hoping for the perfect finale. But for once, fate did not smile on Argentina\u2019s talisman.
Spain kept pushing, probing, attacking and asking incessant questions of the Argentina rearguard.
It was one-way traffic when Argentina had 11 players, let alone when they had 10, but as Argentina kept fouling, spoiling and slowing the game, penalties seemed inevitable.
Then, finally, in the 106th minute and with their 20th shot, Spain broke through.
As in their quarter-final and semi-final wins, Pedro Porro played a pivotal role \u2014 his deep cross finding Nico Williams at the back post, with the Athletic Club forward arching his neck to direct a perfect header back into the path of Ferran Torres<\/strong>, who lashed his shot past a despairing Martinez dive.
Their pressure had finally told and given how they improved as the tournament went on, how they played as a complete team, Spain deserved it.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once made the dare: \u201cShow me a hero and I\u2019ll write you a tragedy.\u201d This was no tragedy. The night before the final, Lionel Messi<\/strong> posted on Instagram:
💬 \u201cWhatever happens tomorrow, this group has already written a story we\u2019ll never forget and that no one can erase.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>
In 2021, Argentina won the Copa America for the first time in 28 years and then retained it. In 2022, they won the World Cup for the first time in 36 years and almost retained it.
Outside an event in New York in the lead-up to the final, Messi was told: \u201cYour career is like a video game\u2014you keep unlocking new levels until you reach the end.\u201d He replied: \u201cI already completed the game at the last World Cup in Qatar.\u201d
Even if Kylian Mbappe clinched the Golden Boot in the third-place play-off against England and surpassed him as the World Cup\u2019s all-time leading scorer, many of the other all-time records in this competition belong to Messi. As he walked down the tunnel, nostalgia for a vanishing world set in.
What will the World Cup be like without Messi? His sixth and likely last was mostly astonishing. When visas were revoked and red cards suspended he brought us back to football, delivering the World Cup from FIFA\u2019s many sins.
Gianni Infantino can keep adding teams but one thing is for sure. A World Cup without Messi will always feel less than whole.
GO FURTHER
The sadness of Lionel Messi\u2019s last tango
Team Stats
ESP
ARG
Game Details<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World CupFIFA WorldCup 2026AdvertisementliveUpdated 33m agoSpain defeated Lionel Messi\u2019s Argentina in extra time to win the 2026 World Cup.Substitute Ferran Torres struck in the second half of extra time to secure Spain\u2019s second World Cup after a disappointing Argentina were reduced to 10 men.The defending champions did not register an attempt on goal until the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":217717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}