The Full Time Report -- Ep.77: Spain's second star, Messi's wound, and Keegan remembered

Spain are world champions again, and they needed extra time and one very good finish to get there. Ferran Torres scored in the one hundred and sixth minute as Spain beat Argentina one nil at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. That is Spain's second men's World Cup title, and it is the part of the story that will sit in the record books. The rest of the night was far less tidy. ESPN's match report says Argentina had already lost Enzo Fernandez to a second yellow card for a stoppage-time foul on Pau Cubarsi. Then, after the final whistle, players and members of the coaching staff from both sides were involved in a confrontation. So this was a final that finished with a trophy for Spain, a red card for Argentina, and a disciplinary problem waiting for FIFA on Monday. The goal itself came after Spain had spent the match trying to make their control count. Nico Williams stretched to meet a hooked cross and sent the ball back into the dangerous area. Torres attacked it and finished. No grand piece of theatre, no twenty-five-pass move for the ages. Just a forward recognising the moment, getting across his man, and giving Spain the goal their pressure had been asking for. That is what makes the result slightly uncomfortable for Argentina. They had managed to keep Spain away from the scoreboard for ninety minutes, and Emiliano Martinez had done his bit to keep them alive. But defending a final is different from controlling one. Spain kept the ball moving, kept returning to the same areas, and made Argentina spend more and more of the match without an answer of their own. The final was not a classic in the way people usually mean it. It was tense, stop-start and a bit niggly. But Spain did not panic when the game became ugly. They stayed patient, and once the extra-time space appeared, Torres took it. That is a proper tournament-winning habit.