De la Fuente scored Ferran’s World Cup winning goal

Soccer is about winning. We’ve said it countless times. But there are matches, and tournaments, where the team that plays the better soccer, or at least the team that genuinely tries to win by attacking, taking risks and looking for the opponent’s goal, deserves to come out on top.

This World Cup final made one thing abundantly clear: if there was one team determined to win it, it was Spain, now a two-time world champion after a performance built on complete control of the match.

On the other side stood an Argentina team that didn’t deserve Lionel Messi.

He deserves better than teammates more interested in provoking, intimidating and hurting opponents than in playing soccer, or allowing anyone else to play it.

One player, in particular, embodied that approach.

Leandro Paredes came onto the field seemingly intent on playing the role of the bully. He used to be remembered as a soccer player. Now, it’s painful to watch him when his only objective appears to be disrupting and destroying the game at any cost.

He was booked within minutes of entering the match, and what followed was a stream of fouls seemingly designed to frustrate Spain’s players, needle them, hurt them and, above all, prevent a game of soccer from breaking out.

What a disappointment that Argentina was.

Across 120 minutes, it failed to put a single shot on target.

The winning goal could only have belonged to Ferran Torres.

Officially, it was the Barcelona forward who scored it, but in another sense it also belonged to Luis de la Fuente.

It recalled Vicente del Bosque’s unwavering faith in Sergio Busquets during Spain’s 2010 World Cup triumph, when many were calling for Busquets to be dropped. Despite Ferran’s difficult start to this tournament, De la Fuente never lost confidence in him. Time after time, Ferran was his first substitute off the bench, and that faith was rewarded with the goal that will live forever in Spanish soccer history.

It was a goal that belonged to the entire team.

Nico Williams provided the assist, the same player who admitted earlier in the tournament that he had experienced the worst day of his life. Ferran finished the move, the same Ferran who had pleaded for a goal against Saudi Arabia to stand, only for it to be disallowed.

It wasn’t meant to count.

Fate had something even greater waiting for him: lifting the World Cup Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player and wearing a world champion’s ring for the rest of his life.

Thank you, Ferran.

Viva España!

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