I don't know, maybe you'll be interested in the Sport-Express ratings (Russia). I understand that it's not very clear in Russian. However, the website's navigation is quite easy, and the players' names are not necessary; instead, there are game numbers. Additionally, you can view the ratings starting from 2014. https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/world/calendar/2026/
That's right, colleague, I have them. I'm just missing the ones from yesterday's match; they probably haven't been posted yet. Thank you very much. It’s very interesting to be able to access the evaluations from 2014 onwards as well. Would you be so kind as to share the link?
De Clarín me faltas los puntajes de las semifinales, de la final de consolación y algunos pocos más no publicados en internet.
No problems. everything is simple there. https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/world/calendar/2014/ https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/world/calendar/2018/ https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/world/calendar/2022/ However, for some reason, the final matches of this tournament were not all rated If you're interested, here are the links to the EURO https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/europe/2004/final/calendar/tours/ https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/europe/2008/final/calendar/tours/ https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/europe/2012/final/calendar/tours/ https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/europe/2016/final/calendar/tours/ https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/europe/2020/final/calendar/tours/ https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/europe/2024/final/calendar/tours/ I don't understand why, starting from the 1/4 finals, the Sport-Express journalists stopped doing their job. bonus - confederation cup 2017 https://www.sport-express.ru/football/L/inter/national/confederationcup/2017/calendar/tours/
Interesting dynamic will be ground duels. Argentina is really good at them, as one could imagine, while Spain is surprisingly subpar in this area. Argentina is winning 39,1 ground duels per game (you have to take into account they had two extra times, therefore 60 more minutes of play) at a success rate of 52,4%, while Spain wins 31,4 ground duels per game at a success rate of 48%. Both numbers are, of course, relative to the opponents they faced so far, but 48% for Spain is a worrying sign, meaning Argentina has a decent chance to establish dominance in the midfield battle. They are more physical and decisive in ground duels across the board, so if it is a close, tactical battle that comes down to winning these duels, Argentina will have an edge here. If Spain doesn't utilize width and finds superiority there, where they hurt Argentina with speed of play, they might have trouble reaching Argentina's goal. A pace of players that attack Argentina's defensive line, especially in wide areas, would be the least suited to Argentina, and if they don't find solutions there, where they can quickly transition and exploit these weaknesses of Argentina, they might seriously struggle to progress through congested central areas. Argentina has struggled with building attacks from the back against high press, while Spain is the best team in the tournament at high press. They are also very impressive in aerial duels: 12.3 aerial duels won at a success rate of 62,3%. I think that stems from Spain pressing very high, forcing long balls from the back, and then the trio of Cubarsi, Laporte, and Rodri winning those aerial duels at a high rate. So really, the key for Argentina is: How to beat that high press from Spain and keep football on the ground? I think if they manage to do that, they have enough quality and decisiveness to really hurt Spain. The defensive record is a bit misleading with this Spanish team, as it has often been with Barcelona in the past, in the sense that it stems from their control of the game rather than actually putting a double defensive shift. For reference, the Spanish team in 2010 WC was winning 46,6 ground duels per game at a success rate of 53%, which is a significant difference. So when Spain this WC is winning less ground duels than their opponents, it is not explained by the idea that small, technical players necessarily win less ground duels and that is their "style" that works. Also, look at the goal that they conceded against Belgium: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2kGJuL9Wudg Doesn't this look eerily similar to what Argentina has been doing in all of their KO stage matches and comebacks? After watching the game between Spain and France (so watching Spain at their absolute best level of performance), I don't think they are historically great at keeping possession, controlling the game for 90 minutes, which I think might be necessary to completely shut down Argentina's offense. I think we will not see one team (Spain) having 70-80% possession of the game due to their high press and quality in possession, but rather we will see different slices of the game. One where Argentina is in a low block, and Spain is trying to penetrate through their defense. One where there is a clash in the middle of the pitch with 50-50 duels. And one where Argentina manages to beat the Spanish press, and Spain retreats back to a low block. Like the one from the video. When the latter scenario happens, what will happen? Is Spain good enough to resist the attacking talent of Argentina we have seen so far in this tournament. Btw, Argentina has scored the most goals in the tournament, excluding the friendly match last night. What will happen if Argentina scores early? So far, Spain wasn't in a must-score situation this tournament.
One way to look at it is that Argentina is struggling in this tournament, while Spain is very good in possession and winning matches with control. So it is only a matter of time before Spain scores, and at that point, all they have to do is the opposite of England, which is to not fall back. And if they do that, they will win this final easily. I think this is an overly simplistic view of the match. I think that Spain will indeed come out firing on all cylinders. They will press, they will win the possession battle, and go from there. But I think Argentina will come very prepared and defensively minded. They will try to disrupt a rythm and tempo of the game as much as possible. And in doing so, I am not sure Spain has attacking answers to overcome this defense. After all, it is not like Spain is scoring 3 goals every match for fun. If they keep losing these duels on the pitch, how will they score? Maybe set-piece? An individual brilliance by Yamal? Maybe Olmo? Against Cape Verde it didn't come for 90 minutes..
Both Portugal and France came out trying to play against Spain. They failed. I think what we are going to see in the final is an aggressive, solid team that Spain hasn't faced yet. It is a completely new dynamic.
Didier Deschamps 14 years as France manager two trophies won (WC 2018, NL 2021) Joachim Löw 15 years as Germany manager two trophies won (WC 2014, Confed 2017) Óscar Tabárez 15 years as Uruguay manager one trophy won (Copa 2011) These long running managers hardly win much despite staying forever.
If Spain win the WC then De La Fuente is better than Del Bosque for me, he coached a much weaker Spanish squad and achieved more.
Total domination, and now Spain have set a new Elo rating record, beating Hungary's rating from 1954.
My team of tournament (4-3-2-1): Bounou – Hakimi, Cubarsí, Laporte, Cucurella – Mac Allister, Rodri, Bellingham – Messi, Mbappé – Haaland. Second team (4-3-3): D. Costa – Porro, Upamecano, L. Martínez, D. Spence – Modrić, F. Ruiz, E. Fernández – Olise, Dembélé, Vinícius. Reserves: Simón – Van Dijk – Yamal – Kane.
Spain was just too good. Argentina never really even tried to get any control of the game—they must’ve thought it was going to be impossible and would just open them up for attacks if they tried. But wow, the dominance was so total that Argentina couldn’t get the ball into the attacking phase essentially at all. I don’t even really know what their plan was. I guess it was to be physical with Spain and try to steal a goal on the counterattack. But they don’t have particularly fast attackers. Maybe that strategy could’ve worked if they had a younger Messi. A younger Messi probably would’ve gotten to that ball very early in the match before the GK did and had a good chance of scoring, for instance. Similarly, maybe a younger Messi could’ve just gotten the ball fairly deep on the counter and dribbled past everyone at some point, but you’re not realistically going to get that from a 39 year old Messi. So yeah, playing for counterattacking goals with a 39 year old on attack and not a whole lot of pace otherwise just seems destined for defeat. I think starting Nico Gonzalez was meant to help them counterattack, but he’s not *that* quick anyways and just isn’t all that good (there’s a reason he’d not played much in the tournament before). Typically, if his team is going to struggle in midfield, Messi drops deep to help out. But I think that this counterattacking strategy dictated that he stay forward, which stopped him from at least helping to stabilize the midfield-control situation. I’m not sure if this was just a tactical decision to go all-in on counterattacking or whether they decided old Messi wouldn’t have the legs to drop deep like that. I suspect Messi (and Argentina in general) were pretty exhausted, especially with multiple extra times, intense matches, and one less day of rest. So maybe that played into the tactics in general. Hard to know. I kind of think it was a tactical decision with Messi not dropping deep, since he was actually pressing more than he usually does, which suggests he did have legs. But who knows. Whatever the reason, Argentina got completely dominated in the middle of the park to the point of just not being able to advance the ball at all. Being unable to move the ball and relying on the potential of random happenstance counterattacks with an attack consisting of a 39 year old and no one very pacy otherwise was just a recipe to not create anything. All that said, ultimately it might well have worked if Enzo Fernandez hadn’t gotten red carded. Argentina was playing physically enough that an eventual red card wasn’t a huge surprise. But absent a red card they may well have been able to keep Spain out for the full 120 minutes—in part because of really good goalkeeping, but also because Spain just isn’t great at finishing. And if it had gone to penalties, obviously Argentina could’ve won. But a strategy that basically relies on trying to hold on for penalties is usually going to fail. I do wonder what would’ve happened if Argentina played more midfielders to begin with, had Messi drop deep more, and played less defensively. Could they have established some midfield control and made the match less one-sided? I think probably. But would they have won that way? Probably not, since Spain’s midfield still would’ve been better and those tactics would’ve opened things up for Spain such that they very likely wouldn’t have kept Spain from scoring for as long as they did. So yeah, probably would’ve been a more positive match but maybe just like a 2-1 or 3-1 loss or something like that instead.
0 - Argentina are the first ever team to fail to have a single shot in 90 minutes in a FIFA World Cup final.Blanks. pic.twitter.com/MfI6SwlunG— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) July 19, 2026
I think that, this time, football has been fair. The best team won. This is the team I propose as the tournament's ideal XI: Diogo Costa; Pedro Porro, Cubarsí, Laporte, Cucurella; Olmo, Rodri, Bellingham; Messi, Haaland, Mbappé. Bench: Bono, Cuti Romero, Nuno Mendes, Manzambi, Olise, Quiñones. Creo que, esta vez, el fútbol ha sido justo. Ha ganado el mejor equipo. Este es el equipo que propongo como el XI ideal del campeonato: Diogo Costa; Pedro Porro, Cubarsí. Laporte, Cucurella; Olmo, Rodri, Bellingham; Messi, Haaland, Mbappé. Banquillo: Bono, Cuti Romero, Nuno Mendes, Manzambi, Olise, Quiñones.
I think one big question now is just how good 2026 Spain is. To my eye, they’re just incredible. They also dominated every match (though obviously Cape Verde held them to a draw), including totally dominating Argentina and France—which is very impressive given how good those teams are. The scorelines don’t really tell the story of their dominance—this final did not feel like a 1-0 match, for instance. And maybe that’s because their finishing isn’t amazing, which is probably their biggest weakness, but everything else is so great. I also note that their 2259 elo rating is the highest of any team ever (https://eloratings.net/). The fact that they won Euro 2024 adds to my assessment of their greatness, though they weren’t as dominant in that tournament and I do think 2026 Spain is better. But even a lesser version of this team won the Euros. The interesting thing is that aside from Rodri and Yamal there’s not many players from Spain that are *super* impressive individually (and Yamal wasn’t even amazing in this tournament). It’s more just that they’re a hive mind in possession and super organized in how they press when out of possession. The coaching job is amazing IMO. I think it also really helps that Spain has developed a specific style/DNA—these players have largely grown up being taught to play football the same way, which probably allows them to play in an abnormally cohesive way for a NT.
A ---------------------Vozinha--------------- Porro-----Cubarsi---Laporte---Cucurella -----------------------Rodri---------------------- --Bellingham---Olmo------Ruiz------ --------------Messi------Mbappé------- ______________________________________ ----------Quiñones-----Haaland --Vinicius--------Kane----------Olise ----------McAllister---Anderson------ N. Mendes--Upamecano----Munoz --------------------Beiranvand------------------ B Coach A : De La Fuente. Coach B : Scaloni. Future star : Manzambi. And Yamal.
I have applied a point system, shown below, for the knockout rounds predictions made. * 1 point for correct winner. * 1 point for correct outcome of match (H-D-A – but no point if predicted winner have already been knocked out). * 1 point for exact score. The results after using this point system: TerjeC: 27 (of 32) 28 (of 32) 9 (of 32) Total: 64 points (of 96 available – 66.67%) wm442433: 19 (/32) 17 (/32) 5 (/31) Total: 41 points (95 available – 43.16%) Sexy Beast: 20 (/32) 17 (/32) 2 (/32) Total: 39 points (96 available – 40.63%) PDG1978: 20 (/31) 15 (/31) 1 (/31) Total: 36 points (of 93 available – 38.71%)
It wouldn't be quite the same (the predictions would be full tournament and round by round) but maybe you should have taken part in this! BoPredicta I didn't, but have been doing for Premier League, and normally do err towards more goals per game than actually happen (in some weeks though more goals occur than I predict still in effect, and in some of the recent seasons at least I've been in the ballpark overall. when the goal tally trends have been highest) - I've tended to be around mid-table give or take over whole seasons (missing the odd game here and there), but with a few high peak weeks to get player of the week awards/joint awards (once getting 200 points which required several - four - correct scores and only a couple of wrong results IIRC) and a very occasional 'prediction of the week' (they are awarded based on how few others predict the exact score, or sometimes the game result). I did check our predictions vs the goals actually scored though, and interestingly I was the only one of us four who 'over-predicted' total goals in knockout phase in the end - the 3rd place play-off changing the balance though between you and SB (even though you had a higher tally in that game than he did, because in other games without that one you'd have been within two of correct tally, and SB would have been further away): - if assigning a South Africa 2 Canada 1 guess (I hadn't made it in time but I think I had that kind of score in mind on seeing knockout stage draw and might have erred to South Africa IIRC) I had 25 goals more predicted than happened (noting I expected to have over-predicted though) - 0.78 per game! You had an 8 goal under-prediction - 0.25 per game, while SB had a 4 goal under-prediction - 0.125, and so did wm442433 (but excluding 3rd place play-off so 0.13 per game). You called the final four correct of course in terms of the match-ups, so even without getting exact scores in those actual match-ups that's where you got things most correct arguably (to end with the correct actual match-ups as predicted). I did get the Spain to win prediction correct too (though I'd been getting closer to 50/50 with France by the time they played each other, even if probably still with an inkling towards Spain...but expecting the one who went through to be able to take the World Cup at that point). My inklings/punts against odds (I guess) didn't come off - Japan vs Brazil (and I get nothing for Norway vs Brazil of course - I'm not really sure if I'd have predicted that once it became a match although could see the potential for Norway goals after Japan seemed dangerous despite little attacking impetus over the game), and Germany vs France (which didn't even become a match of course after Paraguay made it through, but it meant I had France down with an early exit anyway). I maybe paid too much attention to the Japan vs England friendly, and not enough to the fact Japan were I think a decent amount better in possession play and attacking back in 2022 than in this World Cup, and I think I possibly erred too much to thinking the opening games by Germany and Paraguay might indicate how their match-up would go and not enough to a German decline and a Paraguayan difficulty to play against/score against factor that had been emerging afterwards (and on potential Germany vs France I guess I felt that Germany if they put on a good performance, and perhaps with Musiala more like in the Euros by that time, could score goals vs France and just about edge it, but I would have expected more of a two-sided game even in that scenario compared to the actual Spain vs France game that happened).
For my overall XI and squad of tournament, I even started considering 4-2-2-2 or 4-1-2-1-2 in the end, but sticking with the Christmas Tree/4-1-2-2-1 type system, I have it like this (Yamal not quite making it in due to mixing the sublime with the....not so sublime let's say...and generally therefore being a bit inconsistent and lacking in end product although still influencing things with his skills and incisiveness at times, while Gakpo just slipped out of the 26 finally): 1: Costa (Portugal) 2: Cancelo (Portugal) 3: Brown (Germany) 4: Cubarsi (Spain)* 5: Laporte (Spain) 6: Rodri (Spain)* 7: Messi (Argentina)* 8: Ounahi (Morocco) 9: Mbappe (France)* 10: Bellingham (England) 11: Olise (France)* 12: Stanisic (Croatia) 13: Nuno Mendes (Portugal) 14: Van Hecke (Netherlands) 15: Veiga (Portugal) 16: Fabian Ruiz (Spain) 17: P.Sucic (Croatia) 18: Gravenberch (Netherlands) 19: Haaland (Norway) 20: Pedri (Spain) 21: Courtois (Belgium) 22: Baena (Spain) 23: Livakovic (Croatia) 24: Kone (France) 25: Odegaard (Norway) 26: Kane (England) * indicates players I'd probably consider for Golden Ball all in all, maybe followed by Costa, Ounahi (unlike various others pretty good in the game his team was eliminated - I had reviewed performance vs Netherlands too since last calls so with that, and with Pedri being only sub although doing 'ok' when coming on in final games, I felt pretty convinced to put him my XI in the end anyway), Bellingham, Haaland and Laporte.... So this would be the XI (but could be shown instead with Olise, instead of being placed as false left forward kind of, being placed as at the top of a diamond or in a line of AMs with Bellingham in magic square system, which would leave Messi and Mbappe as front two in either case): Costa; Cancelo, Cubarsi, Laporte, Brown; Rodri; Ounahi, Bellingham; Messi, Olise; Mbappe
That game must be among the candidates for worst ever World Cup Final (not Spain's fault though), but the 3rd place play-off (albeit helped by France perhaps not being bothered and then being much more motivated to show something and reduce deficit once 4-0 down) must be among the candidates for most entertaining 'bronze' matches too.
Now that the championship is over, here is my Ideal XI: Diogo Costa - Cucurella - Cubarsí - Laporte - Porro - Rodri - Bellingham - Olise - Mbappé - Messi - Kane I’m leaving Unai Simón out because, even though he only conceded one goal, we hardly saw him in action throughout the tournament; I believe this Spanish squad must be the team that has conceded the fewest chances in World Cup history (among those that went deep into the tournament).
Fun fact: The following is a list of players that have won the World Cup, a continental NT title (i.e. Euros, Copa America), World Cup Golden Ball, Best Player award in their continental NT tournament, the Champions League/European Cup, and the Ballon D’or: - Lionel Messi - Zinedine Zidane - Rodri Granted, there’s great players who weren’t eligible for some of this stuff (non-Europeans couldn’t get the Ballon D’or for a while, players like Pele didn’t compete in the Champions League, etc.). But still pretty elite company for Rodri in terms of titles and awards won. If we added in winning at least 4 league titles, then it’s just Messi and Rodri. If we added on Champions League Player of the Season, then Rodri is the only one to have all of it, but of course that’s because that award started in 2022. Rodri does not have an official player of the season award for a club league season (while Messi and Zidane do), but he did get at least one media award for that in 2024. Overall, I think it’s pretty stunning the trophy/award cabinet that Rodri has compiled.
I am probably going to change my mind in a few days when I do a thorough review of my notes, but here is a first crack of the best XI for 2026 world cup. GK: Vozinha RB: Porro RCB: Upamecano LCB: Akanji LB: Cucurella DM: Rodri CM: Bellingham AM: Olise LF: Mbappe CF: Haaland RF: Messi
Rodri shouldn't have won the Euro's player of the tournament imo, but should have won epl player of the season. Nevertheless, the best defensive midfielder of his generation bar none, possibly the greatest ever. I cant say about the latter as I dont know all candidates well enough. But he is certainly up there.