NEW YORK NEW JERSEY STADIUM \u2014<\/strong> After Spain\u2019s support staff had laid out the game plan, explained the tactics, told the players how they would best position themselves to make this Sunday one they\u2019d never want to forget as opposed to one they\u2019d never be able to, coach Luis de la Fuente addressed his team.<\/p>\n “Gentlemen, we have an appointment with history,” the 65-year-old manager told his players before extra time began. “We want to be there first, and then in the extra time, I just said, \u2018Look, we are doing a great job. The match is controlled, but this is a final, and we are up against Argentina. So, if we are not careful, we might continue a goal. And we kept our focus up until the last minute.\u2019”<\/p>\n As a result, Spain is the World Cup champion.<\/p>\n (Photo by ANP via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n For 120 minutes under the midday sun, La Roja were the better team. In some ways, they were the only team, holding Argentina \u2014 the 2022 winners \u2014 without an attempt at goal for all of regular time and extra time, and then scoring on their 20th shot, when Ferran Torres finally beat Albiceleste keeper Emiliano Mart\u00ednez.<\/p>\n Yet heading into the additional half-hour following a scoreless tie, and with the possibility of penalties looming, the game was still anyone\u2019s to win. And the other side still had Lionel Messi, the architect of Argentina\u2019s late two-goal comeback victory over England in last week\u2019s semis.<\/p>\n “The first idea was to keep Messi at bay, but also the other players,” de la Fuente said. “We wanted to keep them away from our goal.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Did they ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n But they still had to finish the job. They needed a hero to do it. On a team full of bigger names \u2014 teenage sensation Lamine Yamal, former Ballon d\u2019Or winner Rodri \u2014 Torres stepped up and became immortal, joining 2010 icon Andr\u00e9s Iniesta in Spanish lore as a World Cup-winning goalscorer.<\/p>\n “I didn’t think too much,” Torres said afterward. “I saw the ball coming to me, and I shot it with the power of all the Spanish people.”<\/p>\n “I\u2019m so happy for him to have scored this goal,” de la Fuente added. “He will make it into history. He has already made history, and he deserves it.”<\/p>\n The breakout game many suspected Yamal might have in this final never materialized. The Barcelona ace, who turned 19 during the tournament, had a quiet World Cup, though he came close to scoring on a late free kick on Sunday, only for Mart\u00ednez to snare it. No matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n (Photo by Maddie Meyer – FIFA\/FIFA via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n “Today, we were convinced that this was our final,” he said. “I think it was a very complete game. If it wasn’t for the keeper, maybe we would have had a larger margin, a larger win.”<\/p>\n He\u2019ll take it. All of Spain will. It\u2019s just the second World Cup title for the country despite its dominance of Europe at club level, though La Roja has been doing lots of celebrating since de la Fuente took charge in 2022. They\u2019ve now claimed three titles since then, winning the UEFA Nations League in 2023 and the European Championship two years ago. Now they\u2019ve capped it with the biggest prize of all.<\/p>\n “We’ve won everything, in all the categories, and we came to the conclusion [today],” de la Fuente said.<\/p>\n “Once we finished the game, one of the players who\u2019s been here the longest, said, \u2018Coach, now what else is there to win?\u2019”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY NEW YORK NEW JERSEY STADIUM \u2014 After Spain\u2019s support staff had laid out the game plan, explained the tactics, told the players how they would best position themselves to make this Sunday one they\u2019d never want to forget as opposed to one they\u2019d never be able to, coach Luis de la […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}