Spain and Argentina have booked their place in Sunday’s World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, closing out a tournament that has delivered exactly the showpiece many expected back in June.
Anyone checking the Spain Argentina odds will find a final between the reigning European champions and the reigning world champions, and that context alone points to a tightly contested match, with the possibility of the game being settled by penalties, something Argentina know only too well.
Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal will lead their countries into Sunday’s final aware that history could repeat itself under the lights in New Jersey.
How a shootout works
The format itself is brutally simple. Level after 90 minutes, teams play 30 minutes of extra time. Still level, it comes down to five penalties each, then sudden death if the sides can’t be separated. There’s no away goals rule to fall back on and no substitution that changes the outcome, just a long walk from the halfway line and one moment that follows a player around for the rest of their career.
Goalkeepers spend days before a big match studying where opposing takers tend to put the ball, but even the best preparation still comes down to a guess made in half a second.
1994: Brazil vs Italy
Brazil and Italy played out a goalless draw in the searing heat of the Rose Bowl in 1994, still the only World Cup final never to produce a goal.
It went to penalties, and Roberto Baggio, Italy’s best player all tournament, stepped up last knowing a miss would hand Brazil the trophy. He put his effort over the bar, and Brazil won 3-2 on penalties, and that image of Baggio standing motionless, head down, has outlasted almost everything else from that tournament.
2006: France vs Italy
Twelve years later in Berlin, Zinedine Zidane opened the scoring for France with a cheeky chipped penalty, only for Marco Materazzi to equalise for Italy before half-time. The match finished 1-1 after extra time, remembered as much for Zidane’s headbutt on Materazzi and the red card that ended his career as for the football itself.
David Trezeguet then missed France’s fourth penalty off the crossbar. Fabio Grosso, who’d also scored the winner in the semi-final against Germany, stepped up to take the decisive kick and sent Italy to a fourth World Cup, won 5-3 on penalties.
2022: France vs Argentina
The most recent shootout final needed no such reminder of its stakes. Argentina and France drew 3-3 after extra time in Qatar in 2022, in what many still call the best final ever played. Lionel Messi put Argentina 2-0 up with a penalty and a second goal before Kylian Mbappe dragged France level with two goals in the same minute. Messi restored the lead in extra time, only for Mbappe to complete his hat-trick from the spot and force penalties.
In the shootout, goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, never shy of a bit of gamesmanship on the goal line, saved Kingsley Coman’s penaltyand watched Aurelien Tchouameni fire over the bar. That left Gonzalo Montiel to send Argentina into delirium and complete Messi’s collection of major honours. Few would have wanted to bet that outcome once Martinez had made his first save, and Sunday’s final looks capable of throwing up similarly fine margins.
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