Pedro Porro hung a cross into the sky and Argentina’s defenders squinted at the ball like a dying sun, watching it set behind them. There, Nico Williams arrived by stealth to head it back into yawning space in the middle of the box, where Ferran Torres had momentarily slipped the attention of a limping Giuliano Simeone. Torres steadied himself before rapping his left foot through the ball, piercing a gap above Emiliano Martinez’s gloves, and then he was off, adrenaline pumping, eyes bulging.
What an earth do you do when you’ve just won your country the World Cup? Marco Tardelli cried tears of joy. Andres Iniesta took his shirt off. Torres decided to murder a corner flag.
There was bedlam on the pitch and delirium in the stands. The cameras cut away from Torres’s manic celebrations to show a group of grinning men in expensive suits. Sergio Ramos hugged David Villa, Iker Casillas rubbed Carles Puyol’s long mane, and in amongst them was Iniesta himself, offering a little clap and smile.
Only he truly knew the feeling. Sixteen years ago, Iniesta received a bouncing ball in the box from a teammate, steadied himself and crashed a shot past the goalkeeper to win Spain the World Cup. Then it was 1-0 over Netherlands in Johannesburg after extra time; here it was 1-0 over Argentina in New Jersey after extra time. He and Torres will forever be connected by whatever that drug feels like.
“I think in the end the goal came from 47 million people, not just those of us that are here,” an emotional Torres said. “Today destiny was written, it was made for us to win. We’re far from our people today but we tried to be as close as possible to them.”
Spain have won a second World Cup and they have done it in much the same way as the first, as the great class of 2010, dominating the ball, grinding teams down, starving them of touches, of chances, of the general experience of playing football.
Portugal were smothered. Belgium were squeezed out. France were dumbfounded. And here Argentina decided to try their hand at a different sport altogether, more Ultimate Fighting Championship than Fifa World Cup. Spain were forced to access their deepest reserves of patience to break through, to find their inner calm to avoid being sucked into the scrap.
No one will remember much of an ugly final, not even those who played in it. At the end, these sorts of games leave behind only a kaleidoscope of stills: Pau Cubarsi sent into the stratosphere by Enzo Fernandez; Simeone lashing his late shot into the stands; Lionel Messi sprawled on the grass in contemplation; Rodri in tears at the final whistle; Leandro Paredes losing his mind, if he ever had one. Even the violence had echoes of 2010, when Nigel De Jong sent his studs flying into Xabi Alonso’s rib cage and got away with it, long before the age of VAR.
In time, the two great Spanish generations will be compared side by side and perhaps it will not be a flattering comparison for this modern side. Many of the Spanish players watching from up in the stands were greats of the game, elite leaders, doyennes of their field, players who changed how football was played, how it was understood.
The same cannot be said for much of this far less-heralded team. But they have delivered the World Cup in the great Spanish tradition. Spain have an identity, a way of playing the game that is bigger than any individual player, more important than any coach. The same cannot be said for any of the other major powers at this World Cup, at least not to the same extent, not with the same clarity. What Germany, Italy and Portugal would give for an identity right now.
And so it felt fitting that Torres’s goal should mimic Iniesta’s strike. Iniesta had been injured early in the World Cup and took his time to emerge as an influential figure in Spain’s triumph in South Africa. Here Torres had to bide his time, facing some criticism at home for some of his earlier performances, waiting for moments from the bench. A lot of frustration went through that corner flag.
Torres, like Iniesta, is a Barcelona player. For so long, Spain’s great weakness was that split between players across the divide of Barcelona and Real Madrid. The Spanish squad was not a harmonious place. They overcame that in 2010 by finally working together towards a common goal. They overcame it here by simply not selecting any Madrid players.
Torres is 26. He still has time to write a legacy at Barcelona, to become a hero of the Camp Nou. He could yet follow the path of Mario Gotze, Germany’s winning goalscorer in 2014, whose club career never reached the heights it threatened. But the truth is that nothing he ever does will compare to the moment when his boot crashed into that ball and no one could stop it. Like Iniesta, Ferran Torres will forever be the man who won Spain the World Cup.
