The Last Minute Soccer Fan’s Guide to the World Cup Final

Amazing, you’ve done it. You’ve gotten through an entire month of soccer across three North American countries and not paid attention to any of it. You’ve ignored 103 matches including Saturday’s zany, zero-defense third-place sitcom won by England over France, 6-4, you missed two million commercials featuring America’s new favorite egomaniac Zlatan Ibrahimovic, you somehow didn’t hear the rowing Norwegians, or the 40,000 Scots gurgling down all the beer on the Atlantic coastline, and you woke up on Sunday morning with no idea of what’s going on in the 2026 World Cup and wondering if it has anything to do with Bryson DeChambeau stomping on tall grass. Don’t worry, it’s fine. I love you. I’ve got you. Introducing the Journal’s last minute guide to the World Cup final: Today’s final is a heavyweights-only classic between the best team in Europe, Spain, and the best team in the Americas, the defending 2022 World Cup champion, Argentina. This game is a doozy. You’ve got incredible contrast in playing styles plus a pair of generationally opposite superstars in near-quadragenarian Argentina legend Lionel Messi and Spain’s teenage sensation Lamine Yamal, who are somehow intertwined via the most crazily foreshadowing baby photo ever taken. (That’s photo isn’t AI. That’s real. It was part of a Unicef campaign—Unicef confirmed it.) You’ve got Messi, trained in Spain since childhood, trying to deny glory to the nation that raised him like one of their own. It’s pretty zesty stuff. If you’re in line to watch three hours of Matt Damon trudging from Troy to Ithaca in The Odyssey, you might want to watch this at 3 p.m. ET instead.