For 120 minutes, Spain did what no other team at this World Cup had managed.

It found a way to keep Lionel Messi quiet.

The plan was simple in theory but brutally difficult in practice. Every time the 39-year-old drifted towards the right flank, another red shirt arrived. His every passing lane closed and every familiar slalom towards his left foot was met by bodies rather than space.

“The first idea was to keep Messi at bay,” Spain coach Luis de la Fuente admitted afterwards. He had learned his lesson when a 16-year-old Messi had terrorised his Sevilla team in an under-19 match in 2004.

But here, rather than man-marking the Argentine talisman, the Spanish coach looked at cutting the supply and isolating Messi. The Argentine captain managed only 15 touches in the first half and 54 across the entire final. There was no trademark curling finish, no defence-splitting pass, no decisive intervention.

The overwhelming majority of the 80,663 spectators had come hoping to witness another coronation. They wanted to see the man who had already given them one of football’s greatest endings add one final chapter by lifting a second World Cup.

Instead, the faithful watched him leave in tears.

It was here in MetLife in 2016, when Messi had missed in the Copa America final shootout against Chile and announced his international retirement before making a comeback 47 days later to complete his redemption arc.

Ten years later, he returned to the same stadium seeking one final crown, only for it to deny him again.

As Spain celebrated at the centre circle, Messi and his teammates walked towards the Argentina supporters gathered behind the southern goal. The applause that greeted them was as loud as anything heard all evening. Spain’s players, too, understood the moment.

Several, including Lamine Yamal, crossed the pitch to embrace Messi after the final whistle. Later, as Argentina climbed the podium to collect its runner-up medals, the new world champion formed a guard of honour. A few patted him on the back, Messi tried to smile, but the disappointment was hard to contain.

One match, however, cannot rewrite a career.

Messi leaves the World Cup as its most enduring presence with 34 appearances, 23 victories, 21 goals, 27 matches as captain, seven goals from outside the penalty area, 10 knockout-stage assists and, above all, the man who finally completed football’s greatest story by lifting the trophy in 2022. He remains the only player to score in every knockout round of a World Cup-winning campaign.

Spain may have denied him one final triumph, but no one can take away the imprint he has left on this tournament.

For generations to come, the World Cup’s story will be retold through many champions, but few names will echo as deeply as that of Lionel Messi’s.

Somewhere between Ferran Torres’ extra-time winner and the trophy lift, 12 club badges got to claim a piece of history. Spain’s second World Cup title was stitched together by clubs, its academies and leagues spread across Europe, and the breakdown tells a story as interesting as the triumph itself.

LaLiga dominated the numbers, with 17 of the 26 players coming from the Spanish top division, a figure league president Javier Tebas was quick to hold up as proof of its strength. The Premier League supplied seven, while the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 contributed one each, reflecting how Spanish football has kept its biggest talents close to home even as the English top flight’s financial gravity pulls them elsewhere.

Barcelona led individual club representation with nine players, from Lamine Yamal and Pedri to Pau Cubarsi, underlining a squad heavily shaped by La Masia’s production line. Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, and Arsenal each sent three players. Mikel Merino, coming fresh off a Premier League title with the Gunners, carried that winning momentum into the World Cup as he scored the game-clinching goals against Portugal and Belgium.

Perhaps the most striking detail, though, was who was missing. For the first time in Spain’s World Cup history, not a single Real Madrid player featured in the squad, a remarkable absence for the nation’s most successful club. Marc Cucurella’s move to Real from Chelsea, confirmed during the tournament, only added to the irony.

Football has a way of humbling even its grandest institutions, and Real’s absence is proof enough. Spain didn’t need its most decorated club to become the champion again; it just needed 26 players from a dozen different dressing rooms.

For 120 minutes, Spain did what no other team at this World Cup had managed.

It found a way to keep Lionel Messi quiet.

The plan was simple in theory but brutally difficult in practice. Every time the 39-year-old drifted towards the right flank, another red shirt arrived. His every passing lane closed and every familiar slalom towards his left foot was met by bodies rather than space.

“The first idea was to keep Messi at bay,” Spain coach Luis de la Fuente admitted afterwards. He had learned his lesson when a 16-year-old Messi had terrorised his Sevilla team in an under-19 match in 2004.

But here, rather than man-marking the Argentine talisman, the Spanish coach looked at cutting the supply and isolating Messi. The Argentine captain managed only 15 touches in the first half and 54 across the entire final. There was no trademark curling finish, no defence-splitting pass, no decisive intervention.

The overwhelming majority of the 80,663 spectators had come hoping to witness another coronation. They wanted to see the man who had already given them one of football’s greatest endings add one final chapter by lifting a second World Cup.

Instead, the faithful watched him leave in tears.

It was here in MetLife in 2016, when Messi had missed in the Copa America final shootout against Chile and announced his international retirement before making a comeback 47 days later to complete his redemption arc.

Ten years later, he returned to the same stadium seeking one final crown, only for it to deny him again.

As Spain celebrated at the centre circle, Messi and his teammates walked towards the Argentina supporters gathered behind the southern goal. The applause that greeted them was as loud as anything heard all evening. Spain’s players, too, understood the moment.

Several, including Lamine Yamal, crossed the pitch to embrace Messi after the final whistle. Later, as Argentina climbed the podium to collect its runner-up medals, the new world champion formed a guard of honour. A few patted him on the back, Messi tried to smile, but the disappointment was hard to contain.

One match, however, cannot rewrite a career.

Messi leaves the World Cup as its most enduring presence with 34 appearances, 23 victories, 21 goals, 27 matches as captain, seven goals from outside the penalty area, 10 knockout-stage assists and, above all, the man who finally completed football’s greatest story by lifting the trophy in 2022. He remains the only player to score in every knockout round of a World Cup-winning campaign.

Spain may have denied him one final triumph, but no one can take away the imprint he has left on this tournament.

For generations to come, the World Cup’s story will be retold through many champions, but few names will echo as deeply as that of Lionel Messi’s.

Some old photographs gather dust, some others gather meaning.

When Lionel Messi held a five-month-old Lamine Yamal during a charity calendar shoot around Christmas 2007, it was just another click. Nearly two decades on, it has become part of football folklore.

During Euro 2024, Yamal’s father Mounir Nasraoui shared the image with the caption: “The beginning of two legends.” What was probably a throwaway line then reads like prophecy now as the two gear up to face each other in the FIFA World Cup final.

Fans, pundits, players and coaches have all weighed in on the duo, and they all have the same opinion.

The parallels are hard to ignore. Messi scored his first World Cup goal when he was 18, wearing the No. 19 shirt. Twenty years later, Yamal did the same, at the same age and with the same jersey number! He is Barcelona’s youngest debutant and also the youngest goalscorer, breaking records that once belonged to Messi. The list goes on and on.

“For me, Messi is the greatest football player in history. He is a legend and I do not find myself worthy of being compared to him. I do not want to be Messi, and he knows it. I want to follow my own path,” Yamal once said.

Even so, it’s hard to miss how closely the teenager is tracing the trail Messi laid down, and doing it better than others who were hastily crowned the Argentine magician’s successor.

In Focus Podcast | How has the use of VAR impacted FIFA World Cup 2026?

Messi, now 39, is chasing one more piece of history, trying to make Argentina the first team since Brazil in 1962 to defend the World Cup. Up against him will be the 19-year-old Yamal, the face of a Spanish side hoping to lift the trophy for only the second time.

Spain once tried hard to convince Messi to play for La Roja, back when La Albiceleste was slow to notice him. That push peaked before the 2003 Under-17 World Cup where the Spaniards, featuring Messi’s La Masia teammate Cesc Fabregas, defeated the Argentines 3-2 in the semifinal. Fabregas netted a brace, including the match-winner. Jose Pekerman, the Argentine coach, revealed that the Spanish players during the post-match handshake told him: “If you had this kid (Messi), you would have been the champions.”

Messi, however, stayed loyal to Argentina, leaving behind the old question of what Spain might have looked like with him in the line-up. That fantasy will never play out. But in Yamal, Spain may have found something close to it.

The stage is now set for a generational showdown. One gladiator walks onto football’s grandest spectacle for the first time. The other, probably, for his last dance. Between them sits two decades, a stack of broken records and a photograph that has come to signify how destiny always plays a role in football.

The beautiful game brings these two together in the same frame once again, not as legend and heir but as opponents battling for the ultimate prize.

Mikel Oyarzabal scored his third and fourth goals of the World Cup and Spain eased into the last 16 with a ​3-0 victory over Austria on Friday (July 3, 2026) in Inglewood, Calif.

Pedro Porro added ‌his first-ever goal for Spain after halftime, a header ​that, for all intents and purposes, ensured victory against ⁠an opponent that rarely threatened.

Spain vs Austria FIFA World Cup knockout clash highlights

Fullback Marc Cucurella assisted both of Oyarzabal’s goals for La Roja, which outshot Das Team 23-5 overall and led 10-0 in efforts ‌on target.

That was more than enough to secure a round of 16 meeting with the winner of Portugal and ‌Croatia, who play later in Toronto.

Spain have ‌now ⁠outscored their opponents 8-0 while continuing their run as ⁠one of two teams yet to concede at this World Cup, alongside Mexico.

Austria remain in search of their first knockout stage World Cup victory since their third-place ​finish in 1954. They last ‌advanced beyond the initial group stage in 1982, when there was a second group phase before the semifinals and finals.

Spain’s 18-year-old star Lamine Yamal played 85 minutes in his longest outing since mid-April ‌following a hamstring tear that ended his club season ​early.

And while he had some frustrating near-misses in attempting to add his second goal of the tournament, it ⁠ultimately didn’t matter.

Spain had an earlier apparent goal waved off for a foul on Austrian goalkeeper Alexander Schlager before taking the lead ‌through Oyarzabal in the 36th minute.

Pedri made the run up the middle before playing the ball wide to Cucurella on the left. Cucurella dragged his cross low toward the penalty spot where Oyarzabal met it with a simple low finish.

Porro made it 2-0 in the 66th minute on arguably Spain’s best attack of the match. This ‌time it was Cucurella in the middle winning a 50-50 ball following an ​Austrian tackle and playing the ball wide to Alex Baena, who curled in a tempting short cross.

Porro may not ⁠have scored a national team goal before, but he certainly looked the ⁠part, arriving in the box at the right time to guide an easy header across the line.

Cucurella connected with ‌Oyarzabal again in the 89th minute and the Real Sociedad forward became the fourth player at the tournament to score multiple goals ​in multiple games. The others? Argentina’s Lionel Messi, France’s Kylian Mbappe and Norway’s Erling Haaland.

This is a city that became the capital of The New South, where civil rights history meets corporate America, where the headquarters of Coca-Cola rises above streets lined with reminders of a more complicated past.

In June, the Georgia heat settles over Atlanta like a heavy blanket, making the air outside thick and unforgiving. But inside the vast enclosed bowl of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium and beneath its retractable roof and powerful air-conditioning, Spain will attempt to cool a World Cup campaign that has begun unexpectedly hot.

Few anticipated that the European champion would arrive for its second group game under pressure. Yet after a frustrating goalless draw against debutant Cape Verde, Spain suddenly finds itself in desperate need of a positive result against Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

The numbers from that opening game pointed to a familiar malaise in Spanish football, one many believed it had long left behind. It monopolised possession and produced 27 attempts on goal, yet the scoreboard remained untouched.

Veteran goalkeeper Vozinha delivered the performance of his life while Spain was also guilty of making life too comfortable for the Cape Verdeans. For long stretches, it looked like a team searching for the perfect goal when merely finding one would have sufficed.

Cape Verde sat deep, defended bravely and watched Spain pass around it without ever threatening to break the deadlock. That is the challenge facing head coach Luis de la Fuente ahead of the Saudi Arabia match.

Lamine Yamal’s 19-minute appearance from the bench offered a glimpse of a possible solution. The teenager brought unpredictability and directness, qualities that had been missing for much of that afternoon. He could now be rewarded with a place in the starting XI alongside Nico Williams, with Ferran Torres and Gavi among those likely to miss the cut.

Saudi Arabia heads into the clash after an impressive 1-1 draw against Uruguay. The Saudis absorbed pressure, stayed organised and punished mistakes, taking the lead through Abdulelah Al-Amri before eventually being pegged back by Maxi Araujo’s equaliser.

Four years on from his unforgettable winner against Argentina in Qatar, veteran captain Salem Al-Dawsari remains the team’s most influential player, drifting in from the left with the technique and intelligence to change games. Musab Al-Juwayr, the gifted 23-year-old midfielder, provides the creative spark in central areas, while full-back Saud Abdulhamid supplies energy and ambition down the flank.

With all four teams in Group H level on one point, the standings remain perfectly balanced.

Spain still possesses the talent to suffocate opponents. But World Cups have little interest in reputation. Atlanta was built by people who understood the value of reinvention. Spain may need some of that on Sunday. The possession will almost certainly be there, but this time, the goals must follow.

The World Cup has a habit of redefining football’s hierarchy. New stars emerge, established powers fall and careers are forever defined by a handful of moments.

As the tournament heads to North America for the first time since 1994, the game is at a crossroads. Argentina is attempting to become the first team since Brazil in 1962 to retain the World Cup. Kylian Mbappe is looking to cement his place at the top of the game, while Spain’s young stars seek to fulfil their promise. And there remain questions over what a 48-team competition will look like in practice.

Some of those will be answered over the next 39 days as football’s biggest tournament unfolds in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Across 104 matches in 16 host cities, teams will navigate vast distances, multiple time zones and varying conditions, testing not only their quality but also endurance.

Argentina enters the showpiece with much of the squad that conquered the world in Qatar and with Lionel Messi still leading the way.

Now 38 and playing for Inter Miami, Messi knows North American conditions better than most rivals and will hope familiarity can fuel one final run at the world stage.

Argentina begins as one of the favourites, but there will be no shortage of challengers. Spain arrives as the reigning European champion, powered by the creativity of Pedri and Lamine Yamal. Under Luis de la Fuente, it has evolved beyond the possession-heavy style that defined its golden generation, combining technical excellence with greater intensity and directness.

France, world champion in 2018 and finalist in 2022, has spent much of the last decade setting the benchmark in international football.

Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Aurelien Tchouameni headline a side capable of dominating games with or without possession and adapting to the varied demands of tournament football.

England, led by Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane, will again carry the weight of expectations, while Brazil seeks its first World Cup title since 2002. Germany appears rejuvenated after years of inconsistency, with Portugal hoping Cristiano Ronaldo can inspire one final memorable run.

The tournament’s biggest change is structural. Expansion to 48 teams has altered the landscape of international football.

Asia now has eight direct qualification places and Africa nine, opening the door for nations that previously stood little chance of reaching the World Cup.

Uzbekistan, Cape Verde, Curacao and Jordan will make their debuts, while several emerging football countries believe that they can do more than simply participate. Whether the expanded format strengthens the competition or merely stretches it remains to be seen.

Off the field, at a time when the world feels increasingly fenced off, the game has already encountered some of the complications that come with staging a global event. Iran will be based in Mexico and commute to its matches in the United States amid continuing tensions between Tehran and Washington and the wider regional conflict involving Israel.

There has also been controversy surrounding Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, who was denied entry into the USA despite reportedly holding a valid visa and diplomatic passport. Artan, the 2025 African Referee of the Year, was set to become the first Somali official to take part at a World Cup.

But for all the attention on politics, travel and expansion, the tournament will ultimately be judged by the football it produces. In a world that often feels increasingly fractured, the World Cup remains one of the few occasions capable of making the globe move to a common rhythm.

And for over a month, football, hopefully, will once again prove to be bigger than the machinery that powers it today.