Before we talk about the end of the World Cup, we have to talk about the actual end of the World Cup, which featured Spain beating Argentina 1-0 thanks to an extra-time goal from Fernan Torres in the 106th minute.The final, it has to be said, was a mess. It featured a dog’s breakfast of a halftime show that went on twice as long as it was supposed to and made you feel, to paraphrase Matt Damon’s Odysseus, like it had been 10 years on this fucking pitch. Spain earned its second World Cup and first since 2010, but the game was a completely one-sided affair in which Argentina not only posted 0.09 Expected Goals (as opposed to 1.72 for Spain), but didn’t even muster a single shot until the 120th minute. They were the first team with that unfortunate distinction in a World Cup game — not a final, just any game — since Costa Rica in 2022. (Costa Rica lost that one 7-0.)

Argentina ended the game a man down thanks to a red card, though considering how invisible Lionel Messi was the whole game, you could say they were down two. Also, it took fans hours to get into “New York New Jersey Stadium” after sitting in traffic even longer. And it all ended with the President of the United States—who had been rightly and enjoyably roasted by some German broadcasters earlier in the game—congratulating the winning team through boos and, looking, it must be said, decidedly low-energy: One suspects it’s the first time he’s sat through 105 minutes of goal-less soccer in this life. (It was........

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