In the 2026 World Cup final this Sunday, Spain will play against defending champion Argentina following controversies for both teams<\/p>\n
The reigning FIFA World Cup champion, Argentina, will face off against Spain in the tournament\u2019s final match. They are the last two teams standing after the first-ever 48-team men\u2019s World Cup, the largest field in the history of the global soccer tournament.<\/p>\n
Argentina\u2019s shining star, Lionel Messi, will go head-to-head against Spain\u2019s wunderkind, Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n
Should Argentina emerge victorious in the final, the three-time champion would become the first back-to-back World Cup winner since Brazil won the 1958 and 1962 titles. Spain, which is only a one-time champion. is hoping to earn its second title and earn the country\u2019s first World Cup title since 2010.<\/p>\n
Messi, co-leader in the Golden Boot race, and Argentina have seemed to do whatever it takes to keep their repeat bid alive in the knockout rounds. In Wednesday\u2019s semifinal match against England, Argentina\u2019s Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez tied the match 1-1 in the 85th minute off a feed from Messi before Lautaro Mart\u00ednez headed home a Messi cross later in stoppage time to win the 2-1 match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two-goal onslaught against England was just the most recent dramatic finish for Argentina, following extra-time victories over Cape Verde and Switzerland, and a two-goal comeback against Egypt.<\/p>\n
Argentina has also sparked major controversy throughout the tournament, with some World Cup fans accusing FIFA of favoritism<\/a> and alleging Argentinian fans of racist behavior<\/a> in the stands. Additionally, following the match against England, the team held up a political banner<\/a> saying \u201cThe Falklands Islands are Argentine,\u201d which is a violation of FIFA guidelines that prohibit the display of any political messages or slogans by players before, during or after a match.<\/p>\n Spain secured their place in the World Cup final following Tuesday\u2019s 2-0 victory over team captain Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 and France. Spain has only allowed one goal the entire tournament when they played Cape Verde and have set a men\u2019s World Cup record with their sixth clean sheet after shutting out Mbapp\u00e9 and France.<\/p>\n Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n Spain is not immune to controversy itself. During the semifinal match against France, French players and fans protested a refereeing decision claiming a handball was missed in the build-up to a Spanish penalty, which eventually led to Mikel Oyarzabal\u2019s opening goal. Spain\u2019s former prime minister Mariano Rajoy also made racist remarks about the French team<\/a> ahead of Spain\u2019s match against France.\u00a0<\/p>\n France and England will play on Saturday, July 18 at 2 p.m. PT at Miami Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida for third place.<\/p>\n The 2026 FIFA World Cup will come to a close with the final on Sunday, July 19 at 12 p.m. PT at the New York New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the 2026 World Cup final this Sunday, Spain will play against defending champion Argentina following controversies for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4027,23382,2383,3357,556,938,332,23383,17,3003],"class_list":["post-56118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-argentina","tag-controversy","tag-england","tag-fifa","tag-france","tag-lamine-yamal","tag-lionel-messi","tag-racist-remarks","tag-spain","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}