{"id":594866,"date":"2026-07-20T10:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T10:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/594866\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T10:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T10:19:10","slug":"rodri-wins-world-cup-golden-ball-as-kylian-mbappe-wins-second-golden-boot-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/594866\/","title":{"rendered":"Rodri wins World Cup Golden Ball as Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 wins second Golden Boot \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/spain-football-team\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/spain-football-team\/\">Spain<\/a>\u2019s captain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/rodri\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/rodri\/\">Rodri<\/a>, their midfield supremo, has won the Golden Ball for the 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/world-cup\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/world-cup\/\">World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The 30-year-old, who was vital to Spain\u2019s possession-based game in midfield, highlighted his greatness once more after winning the best player in Euro 2024 and winning the Ballon d\u2019Or that year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Rodri finished ahead of Lionel Messi, who was expected to win before the final, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kylian-mbappe\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kylian-mbappe\/\">Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/a>, who won the Silver Ball and Bronze Ball respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Messi and Mbapp\u00e9 were in a battle for the Golden Boot, which was ultimately won by Mbapp\u00e9, who became the first player to win the award twice. The Frenchman scored 10 goals at the World Cup, the most in one tournament since Gerd Muller in 1970.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Golden Glove award for best goalkeeper went to Unai Simon, who only conceded one goal, to Belgium, in the entire tournament. Spain\u2019s young defender Pau Cubarsi won the Fifa Young Player award for his performances in that tight backline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Netherlands, who exited in the last 32 to Morocco, won the Fifa Fair Play Trophy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Cape Verde\u2019s Sidny Lopes Cabral\u2019s curling shot for his equalising goal in extra time during the round of 32 match against Argentina was voted goal of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">World Cup Wallchart<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s captain Rodri, their midfield supremo, has won the Golden Ball for the 2026 World Cup. The 30-year-old,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,34476,19,17,86748,28673,53370,132,35350],"class_list":["post-594866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-eire","tag-fifa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kylian-mbappe","tag-lionel-messi","tag-rodri","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116951801192738463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}