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Ferran Torres in action for Spain during the 2026 World Cup
Sports 20 July 2026

Spain beat Argentina 1-0 to win the World Cup 2026 final — Ferran Torres settled it in extra time

Spain won the World Cup 2026 final 1-0 over Argentina, Ferran Torres scoring in the 106th minute at MetLife Stadium. It is Spain's second title, sixteen years after 2010.

It ended the way Spain played the whole tournament: unhurried, unbothered, and utterly airtight. At MetLife Stadium, Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in extra time to win the World Cup 2026 — their second title, sixteen years after South Africa 2010. The defending champions went out without doing the one thing nobody thought possible a month ago: Argentina did not manage a single shot in the ninety minutes.

The night turned crueller still before extra time began. Enzo Fernández — the stoppage-time hero of the semi-final against England — picked up a second yellow right at the end of regulation, leaving his side to play the extra half hour with ten men.

How did Ferran Torres score the winner?

The goal came in the 106th minute, at the start of the second period of extra time: a long ball ripped through Argentina’s line, Nico Williams won the race and cushioned a header back across, and Ferran Torres met it with a half-volley the Argentine keeper never saw. One moment, and it was enough — Spain finish the tournament having conceded exactly one goal in seven games, the wall that had reached the final all but intact.

Who won the World Cup 2026 Golden Boot?

The Golden Boot goes to Kylian Mbappé with 10 goals — Messi finished on 8, after the two had arrived at the weekend level. For Messi, at 39, this was the farewell everyone knew was coming, and football declined to repeat the 2022 script: this time the trophy went past him, handed over on the pitch by Gianni Infantino with Donald Trump alongside on the stage. The official match sheet is on FIFA’s site.

For Spain the circle closes neatly: European champions in 2024, world champions in 2026, with Lamine Yamal’s generation inheriting the stage on the very night Messi left it. Our tournament diary signs off in the World Cup 2026 tracker — it was quite a ride, and it ended in Spanish red.

By Vasco Almada

Image: Bryan Berlin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Inside the Estádio do Dragão, FC Porto's home ground, seen from the stands
Sports 20 July 2026

FC Porto have gone to Norway for Mame Niang — 1.6 million euros for a 6ft 5in striker

FC Porto agreed a deal with HamKam for Mame Niang, a 20-year-old Senegalese striker. A 1.6 million euro fee, a five-season contract and a 20 million release clause.

FC Porto's transfer market keeps pointing north. The Dragons have reached an agreement in principle with Norway's HamKam to sign Mame Niang, a 20-year-old Senegalese striker who stands 1.97 metres tall — and the player is already in Porto to sort out the final details, having flown in on Sunday. Nobody, it seems, wants to waste time. The deal comes to 1.6 million euros up front, plus 700,000 in add-ons, with HamKam keeping 15 per cent of a future sale.…

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Aerial view of a football pitch during a match
Sports 19 July 2026

World Cup 2026 today: news, results and the updated bracket

Our running World Cup 2026 tracker: results from every round, the updated knockout bracket and the day's big stories, updated through the 19 July final.

This is our running World Cup 2026 tracker, updated after every round through the final on 19 July at MetLife Stadium. Instead of hunting for the day's article, you'll find the results that matter, the stories shaping the tournament and the road to the final here — with the official schedule and results always available on FIFA's site. For the first time there is a round of 32 before the round of 16: the top two in each group advance along with the eight…

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A stand packed with Argentina supporters in sky-blue and white shirts at the 2026 World Cup
Sports 19 July 2026

World Cup final fever swallowed New York — Times Square turned sky blue and the MetLife queue never ended

Thousands of Argentina and Spain fans took over New York on World Cup 2026 final day. At MetLife Stadium, 80,000 people faced hours-long queues with security beefed up for Donald Trump.

Long before kick-off at MetLife Stadium, the World Cup 2026 final had already been played out on the streets of New York. Thousands of Argentina supporters turned Times Square into a sea of sky blue, drums and flags bouncing off the giant screens, while Spain's fans answered in smaller but no less noisy pockets. Anyone walking through midtown in the early afternoon could be forgiven for thinking Buenos Aires had moved to Manhattan wholesale. Around 80,000…

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Josh Kerr celebrates with arms raised as he crosses the finish line on a blue athletics track
Sports 19 July 2026

Josh Kerr ran the mile in 3:42.66 and erased a 27-year-old world record

Josh Kerr broke the mile world record with 3:42.66 in London, taking 0.47 seconds off the mark El Guerrouj had held since 1999. He is the first man ever under 3:43.

Some records become furniture: they have been around so long nobody can picture the room without them. The mile was one of them — 3:43.13, Hicham El Guerrouj, Rome, 1999. On Saturday night in London, Scotland's Josh Kerr took 27 years of history and ran straight over it: 3:42.66, a new world record, in the Emsley Carr Mile at the Diamond League's London meet. He is the first man ever to break 3:43. El Guerrouj's 3:43.13, standing since 7 July 1999 — the…

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MetLife Stadium exterior during the 2026 World Cup, venue of the Argentina-Spain final
Sports 19 July 2026

World Cup 2026 final kicks off tonight at 8pm Lisbon — free-to-air on RTP1

Argentina vs Spain, the World Cup 2026 final, kicks off at 8pm Lisbon time at MetLife Stadium. RTP1 carries it free-to-air in Portugal, with Sport TV too.

This is it. A whole month of football comes down to ninety minutes (or a hundred and twenty — nobody's ruling that out) between Argentina and Spain at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, near New York. And if you're watching from Portugal, it won't cost you a cent. The final kicks off tonight, Sunday, at 8pm Lisbon time (7pm in the Azores) — 3pm on the US east coast, a late-afternoon slot built precisely to catch European prime time. You can watch the…

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Declan Rice from behind in England's white number 4 shirt, facing the stands
Sports 19 July 2026

England beat France 6-4 for World Cup 2026 bronze and Mbappé still broke records

England beat France 6-4 in the World Cup 2026 third-place match in Miami after leading 4-0. Mbappé scored twice, reached 22 career World Cup goals and now leads the Golden Boot with 10.

England beat France 6-4 in the World Cup 2026 third-place match in Miami on Saturday night — ten goals, half a historic comeback, and two records falling along the way. It's England's best World Cup finish since the 1966 title, and the first time the bronze game has ended in an English party: the only previous attempt, in 1990, ended in defeat. A game in two acts that nobody scripted. With Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham starting on the bench and a heavily…

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Kylian Mbappé in France's blue national-team shirt during a match, facing goal
Sports 18 July 2026

The World Cup 2026 Golden Boot is tied — and Messi and Mbappé have until Sunday to settle it

Messi and Mbappé enter the final weekend of the 2026 World Cup level on eight goals in the Golden Boot race. Assists break the tie — here is how the duel plays out.

The tightest race left at this World Cup isn't for a podium place — it's for a boot. Messi and Mbappé reach the tournament's final weekend level on eight goals apiece, and the fixture list has turned it into a near-perfect long-distance duel: the Frenchman had tonight's third-place game in Miami, the Argentine gets Sunday's final in New Jersey. As we write, Messi and Mbappé share the lead on eight goals, with nobody else still playing anywhere near them.…

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Crowd of fans heading to a 2026 World Cup match in the United States
Sports 18 July 2026

The 2026 World Cup is closing on a record — and Trump gets to hand over the trophy

World Cup 2026 ends with a record 6.7 million spectators. On Sunday, Trump joins Infantino for the trophy ceremony at MetLife and FIFA debuts championship rings.

Before anyone lifts the trophy, World Cup 2026 has already claimed one title: biggest ever. By the time Argentina and Spain settle Sunday's final, roughly 6.7 million spectators will have passed through the turnstiles — more than the previous two World Cups combined. That is 104 matches across 16 cities in three countries, with fans from 200 nations, and there is still tonight's third-place game between France and England in Miami to add to the pile.…

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Lionel Messi sitting on the pitch in Argentina's number 10 shirt, seen from behind
Sports 18 July 2026

Messi plays the last final of his life tomorrow — and spent the eve promising to 'give it our all'

On the eve of the World Cup 2026 final against Spain, Messi turned up at Fanatics Fest in New York, posed for selfies with Brady and Djokovic, and left one promise: Argentina will give everything at MetLife.

Messi has one match left. One. And it happens to be a World Cup final. At 39, Argentina's captain walks into MetLife Stadium tomorrow for what everyone — himself included — treats as the last World Cup game of his career, against a Spain side arriving unbeaten in 37 matches. Around 1.5 billion people are expected to watch how it ends. The eve was not spent in monastic silence. On Friday night Messi appeared at Fanatics Fest in New York, where he was…

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A Global Crossing Airlines (GlobalX) Airbus taking off
Sports 18 July 2026

Portugal's World Cup squad flew on an ICE deportation plane — and nobody knew

Portugal's national team travelled to Dallas at the 2026 World Cup on a GlobalX aircraft regularly used for ICE deportation flights, including the removal of Venezuelans to El Salvador's mega-prison.

On the eve of the final, the 2026 World Cup has one more uncomfortable story — and this one lands close to home. Portugal's squad flew to Dallas on 4 July, for the match against Spain, aboard an aircraft belonging to Global Crossing Airlines, better known as GlobalX: a charter company that spends much of its time flying deportation missions for ICE, the US immigration enforcement agency. Because of the registration number, visible in videos of the trip…

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Spain goalkeeper Unai Simón clears the ball during the World Cup 2026 semi-final against France
Sports 17 July 2026

Spain reach the World Cup 2026 final having conceded once — now Messi's Argentina must solve the unsolvable

Spain kept six clean sheets and conceded a single goal on the road to the World Cup 2026 final. On Sunday at MetLife Stadium, that wall meets the champions.

One number explains why Spain go into Sunday as favourites: one. A single goal conceded across seven World Cup matches. No side had ever arrived at a final like this — six shut-outs in one edition, something no World Cup had seen before — and that is the wall Lionel Messi's Argentina have 48 hours to figure out. Just one in the entire campaign — six of their seven games ended without Simón picking the ball out of his net, a first for a single World Cup.…

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Lionel Messi embraces Lautaro Martínez in Argentina colours at the 2026 World Cup
Sports 17 July 2026

Messi and Mbappé are tied for the 2026 World Cup Golden Boot — and the tiebreaker has already picked its winner

The 2026 World Cup Golden Boot race is level: Messi and Mbappé sit on eight goals each. The tiebreaker favours the Argentine — but the Frenchman plays first.

Eight goals apiece. The 2026 World Cup Golden Boot race heads into the final weekend with Messi and Mbappé locked together at the top of the scoring charts — and with one delicious detail: if neither scores again, the trophy already has an owner. FIFA's tiebreaker looks at assists first, and that's where the Argentine smiles. Messi has four to Mbappé's three — and his latest two were worth their weight in gold, setting up both goals in the stoppage-time…

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Tugadaily chart comparing the resale price of a World Cup 2026 final ticket with the official price and with Qatar 2022
Sports 17 July 2026

A ticket to the Argentina-Spain final costs more than a used car

World Cup 2026 final tickets are reselling at an average of $11,000 at MetLife, with some listings asking millions. Here is what Sunday's Argentina-Spain final is really costing fans.

If you were thinking of nipping over to New Jersey for Sunday's World Cup final, sit down before you look at the prices. Getting into MetLife Stadium for Argentina-Spain costs, on average, around $11,000 on the resale market — more than plenty of people pay for a second-hand car. The average resale price is hovering around $11,272, and even the cheapest secondary-market seat rarely dips below $11,000. It is the most expensive final ever: for context, the…

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Miguel Oliveira riding in a MotoGP race
Sports 17 July 2026

MotoGP is moving to DAZN in Portugal — five seasons of exclusivity through 2031

DAZN has secured exclusive MotoGP broadcast rights in Portugal from 2027 to 2031, including Moto2, Moto3 and the World Superbike championship where Miguel Oliveira races. The Portuguese GP stays at Portimão.

Motorcycle racing fans in Portugal have a new name to memorise. DAZN has secured exclusive broadcast rights to MotoGP in the country from 1 January 2027, in a five-season deal running through the end of 2031. The package covers everything: practice, qualifying, sprint races and the full Grands Prix across MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3. On DAZN, exclusively — the streaming platform becomes the only home of motorcycling's premier class in Portugal for five…

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