Spain used one of Argentina’s main weapons throughout the knockout stages to beat them in extra time.
La Roja were the far better side from the start, but needed over 100 minutes and a one-man advantage to finally break the deadlock.
Substitutes Nico Williams and Ferran Torres combined early on in the second half of extra time. The Barcelona forward fired the only shot of the game that Dibu Martinez couldn’t keep away.
But it was precisely a weapon that the Albiceleste used to traumatise opponents in their knockout stage heroics that led to their demise at the hands of Spain. And one that La Roja themselves had seemingly gone away from as the tournament went on.
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How did Spain use Argentina’s secret weapon against them?
Argentina stood out in the 2026 World Cup by focusing their attacking actions in the central corridor, an increasingly rare sight in modern football.
In fact, they finished the tournament with the highest percentage of attacks down the middle (33%).
Which also goes to show how much Spain were able to take them away from their preferred actions. In the final, the Albiceleste recorded just 27% of their attacks down the middle, their outright lowest in a single game and the only time they finished below 30% in this regard.
Whenever they recovered possession, all of Spain’s centre midfielders and centre-backs were pressing them to regain it straight back. It forced them wide and Luis de la Fuente smartly trapped them until they lost the ball to restart their sequences.
In the end of the game, of course, they positioned Lionel Messi out wide in hopes of getting the same outcome from the comeback against England.
But an underrated part of Argentina’s campaign is how they used set pieces and crosses overall to their advantage, despite a lack of height and physicality throughout the squad.
In short, near-post crosses caused Switzerland a lot of damage in the quarter finals. Meanwhile in the semi finals against the Three Lions (plus the winner vs Egypt) they did it with far-post deliveries.
For perspective, the Albiceleste ranked fourth overall and first among knockout-stage sides in cross completion rate throughout the 2026 World Cup. And they scored four goals that way from players who aren’t particularly tall, such as Alexis Mac Allister, Lautaro Martinez and Enzo Fernandez. The exception was Cristian Romero.
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And far-post open-play crosses were Spain’s main threat to Argentina down the stretch in the final. Not only that, but how they actually got the winner.
La Roja actually looked for crosses quite often from the start. This was their second game with the most crosses attempted in the tournament: 27 (36 vs Cape Verde). Granted, they did play 120 minutes against the South Americans.
But they bumped into severe limitations. Spain completed just five of their 27 crosses in the final – three of which came in extra time.
| Spain accurate crosses | Minute |
|---|---|
| Baena → Olmo | 13 |
| Yamal → Torres | 67 |
| Porro → Torres | 98 |
| Williams → Merino | 103 |
| Porro → Williams | 106 |
But there seemed to be a clear instruction to look for players attacking either the far post itself or coming from it towards the middle of the box.
Lionel Scaloni chose to defend mostly in man-oriented fashion. Even when they sat in a deeper zonal block, defenders never lost track of the closest Spanish forward and could swiftly transition into man-marking. De la Fuente tried to use this to his advantage and get players free in gaps at the far post.
It worked wonderfully for the goal, with Pedro Porro’s cross finding Nico Williams. He might not have taken a shot directly from it, but set up Ferran Torres for the trophy-winning goal.
But almost identical chances had come just a few moments earlier, still in extra time. Torres found the net in the start of the second half of extra time, but both Nico Williams and Mikel Merino missed clear-cut opportunities with back-post headers in the first half of extra time.
They were such good chances that Opta ranked them as the best in the whole game according to their expected goals model. The Arsenal midfielder’s attempt was worth 0.23 xG and Athletic Bilbao winger’s 0.24 xG.
Regardless, the point still stands. Luis de la Fuente felt like the gap between Argentine centre-backs and full-backs was a clear path for scoring. There were signs during extra time that it was to come – and it did.
Credit to the coaching staff for coming up with the strategy and the players on the pitch for executing. Fully deserved trophy for Spain who otherwise still dominated Argentina completely and had other opportunities from different actions to try and win the game.
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