Future World Cup finalists, take note: burying a coin in the grass before kickoff guarantees you’ll end up on the winning team. Although it may only work if you’re Spanish, and you may also have to be a left-back.

The sample size may be small, but Spain are now two for two when one of their defensive stars has done it before a World Cup final.

The coin that brought Spain luck

Joan Capdevila, the starting left-back in the team that won Spain’s first World Cup in 2010, shared a clip of Marc Cucurella, who plays in the same position in the current side, burying something, which we now know was a coin, next to the touchline moments before kickoff in Sunday’s game against Argentina.

“In 2010, I buried a coin in the grass before starting the match... I’ve told the story millions of times,” Capdevila wrote on X. “I asked @cucurella3 to do the same yesterday... Marc, I love you so much. YOU ARE A WORLD CHAMPION!”

Spain’s victories in the two tournaments were remarkably similar. Capdevila’s 2010 team needed an Andrés Iniesta strike in the 116th minute to see off an overly physical Netherlands side that ended the game with 10 men.

You can copy and paste that exact sentence for Spain and Cucurella’s 2026 triumph, only changing “Andrés Iniesta” to “Ferran Torres,” “116th minute” to “106th minute,” and “Netherlands” to “Argentina.”

Why Capdevila almost missed the Spain vs Argentina final

Capdevila was one of a number of Spain legends in the crowd at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, although he revealed on X that he very nearly never made it. On July 17, just two days before the final, the former defender explained he had been refused an ESTA because he had spent time in Iran playing in an exhibition game a decade ago.

However, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in an email to The Associated Press that it had received a request to allow Capdevila into the United States, which it granted. The 48-year-old ultimately flew into New York on the day of the game with his two sons.

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