Spain climbed again to the summit of world football on Sunday when substitute Ferran Torres struck in the 106th minute to prise the World Cup from holders Argentina with a 1-0 victory that crowned a new era but brought precious little beauty.
The biggest prize in football deserved a classic. Instead, the world’s two finest teams produced a suffocating stalemate that drifted towards penalties before Torres finally found the breakthrough with Spain’s 20th attempt on goal.
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It was perhaps fitting that the final whistle sparked the game’s liveliest moments, with players pushing, shoving and falling to the ground as Argentina’s frustrations finally boiled over into a brawl.
The euphemism “one for the purists” might have been coined to describe this contest. It was a match almost entirely devoid of quality, chances and risk until Torres, introduced from the bench, finally broke the deadlock.
Messi, the second player after Brazilian great Cafu to feature in three World Cup finals, was a pale shadow of his earlier self, unable to inspire his team.
For Spain, Lamine Yamal barely registered. These two had been billed as the stars of this match, but it was Spain substitutes Torres and Nico Williams who injected some much-needed energy and dynamism into a drab affair.
It was the fifth of the last six World Cup finals to go to extra time, but none of those crowds had endured such flat, joyless football.
Spain, masters of the suffocating, pressing style, had nothing to press, nothing to suffocate. The Argentines were the first-ever team to fail to muster one shot — on target or off — for the entire 90 minutes of a World Cup final.
Argentina seemed content to niggle, pull shirts, shove, foul and disrupt rather than attack. In some respects, it was remarkable they finished with only one red card, Enzo Fernandez being dismissed for flattening Pau Cubarsi in stoppage time.
After more than a month of scintillating goals and exhilarating sport, this was no advertisement for what the hosts call soccer.
One can only imagine what US President Donald Trump, watching alongside FIFA chief Gianni Infantino in a glassed-off VIP box, made of the spectacle.
In truth, this was the toughest of sells, even for the purists. Spain dominated possession but were toothless in attack.
In total, they had 20 attempts on goal, 12 on target. Possession only gets you so far in a sport where goals settle results.
The official FIFA statistics registered Argentina as having two attempts at goal. None were on target and the term attempt was being used loosely.
