{"id":300980,"date":"2026-07-20T19:37:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/300980\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T19:37:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:37:54","slug":"brooklyn-soccer-fans-celebrate-after-spain-defeats-reigning-fifa-world-cup-champion-argentina-wins-world-cup-for-second-time-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/300980\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn soccer fans celebrate after Spain defeats reigning FIFA World Cup Champion Argentina, wins World Cup for second time \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The longest FIFA World Cup, with a historic 48 teams playing 104 matches over 39 days, is over after Spain dethroned reigning champion Argentina with a 1-0 win in extra time in an intense final match in New Jersey on Sunday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the second FIFA World Cup title for La Furia Roja after 2010. The team went into the final as a heavy favorite, dominating<\/a> throughout the game and controlling 66% of possession, with 12 on-target shots compared to Argentina\u2019s 0.<\/p>\n

Spain fans who had gathered alongside Argentina fans<\/a> at the Black Horse Pub in Park Slope told Brooklyn Paper during halftime why they wanted Spain to win the world\u2019s most coveted sports title.<\/p>\n

\"spainCarleen, a fan of France, supported Spain in the Final. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann \"\"Brooklynites gathered to watch the Final in Park Slope. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n

While Carleen, a France fan, liked Lionel Messi as a player, she was rooting for Spain because of the favoritism Argentina enjoyed throughout the tournament.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Spain because I feel that the game is being swayed to support Messi. I don\u2019t think that they\u2019re being fair toward the other teams who are playing Argentina. And for that reason, I want Spain to win,\u201d Carleen said, adding, \u201cBut I am happy that it seems like Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 is gonna get the Golden Boot,\u201d referring to the French National striker, who scored 10 goals throughout the tournament, beating Messi by two in goal standings.<\/p>\n

Soccer fans Michelle and Kevin were backing Spain because they didn\u2019t like Argentina, though Kevin joked that he supports the team because \u201che had to\u201d since he lives with Michelle.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Spain fans celebrate Spain\u2019s FIFA World Cup Championship. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann \"worldFans of both teams packed a Park Slope bar for the Final. By Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n

\u201cI like that Spain is taking possession of the ball and hopefully not letting Argentina score,\u201d Michelle said, though Kevin was concerned that while Spain had had many chances throughout the first half, the team wasn\u2019t finishing in the final third.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Spain] needs to finish in the final third in order to have a chance. Argentina hasn\u2019t had a great World Cup, but they\u2019re playing with the spirit to try to come back,\u201d Kevin noted<\/p>\n

Julio, originally a Mexico fan, was rooting for Spain and predicted the team would win 1-0.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [the game] is going pretty good. They just need to finish off those plays,\u201d he said.
\n\"argentinaFans of both teams felt optimistic at the start of the game. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann\n<\/p>\n

Brooklynite Pat was rooting for Argentina because of 39-year-old Lionel Messi.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of the greatest players ever, if not the greatest player,\u201d Pat said.\n<\/p>\n

After a scoreless regular time, the game went into overtime, and things grew more tense.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s Nico Williams scored in the 97th minute; however, the goal was disallowed for an alleged foul by Mikel Merino, who stepped on the left foot of Argentina\u2019s Nicolas Otamendi inside the box. It wasn\u2019t until the 106th minute that Ferran Torres broke the 0-0 stalemate, scoring the winning goal after a headed assist from Nico Williams.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tensions rose as the game went into extra time. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann \"\"Fans of both teams held their breath until the last seconds of the match. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n

Spain fans Dorita and Andre were elated that their team, which is also the reigning European Cup Champion, took home the trophy.\n<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s approach in the match, Andre said, was defined by preparation, discipline and timing.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

With Argentina spending much of the game in a defensive style, Spain managed the match by \u201crelaxing\u201d earlier rather than pushing at full intensity from the outset.<\/p>\n

\"\"Spain fans Dorita and Andre were elated that their team took home the trophy. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann \"\"Spain fans celebrate Spain\u2019s FIFA World Cup Championship. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n

\u201cArgentina has been pretty much playing defense for 80% of the game, and they\u2019ll up the intensity towards the end. If you look at all the other games, they\u2019re scoring toward the end of the game, but Spain actually relaxed and wasn\u2019t attacking as hard as they could have, so they\u2019re not burning their players out in that first half,\u201d Andre explained. \u201cThey also play very good defense because once Argentina upped their intensity, they were there every single time to stop the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the sometimes questionable refereeing decisions that seemed to favor Argentina during the tournament \u2014 like Argentina\u2019s win against Egypt in the Round of 16, when the referees disallowed an Egypt goal and denied a penalty kick \u2014 Spain still found ways to match the late pressure, Andre noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I feel like had the reffing been a little bit better, Argentina would not have made it past that game [against Egypt],\u201d Andre said. \u201cToday, with a lot of the calls that were for Argentina. So it\u2019s almost like nobody can say that Spain didn\u2019t earn it because even with the reffing being more towards the Argentinian side, they overcame that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Alex Formoso and his son were pretty disappointed about Argentina\u2019s loss. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n

Argentina fan Alex Formoso said he was pretty disappointed, as Argentina could have won the trophy for the fourth time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were playing a certain defensive style, and they were inviting pressure, and that\u2019s how\u00a0 Spain was able to go up 1-0,\u201d Formoso said. \u201cThey were playing for penalties. All of their subs were defensive subs, and the guys on Spain were like young children. I think Argentina had the experience to push and press them, and they could have won the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The longest FIFA World Cup, with a historic 48 teams playing 104 matches over 39 days, is over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[33303,5805,14414,114217,114218,98,100,99,1311,40464,12541,9,24,12,370,63,8005,400,114219,2208,319,14771],"class_list":["post-300980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-2026-fifa-world-cup","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-argentina","tag-black-horse","tag-black-horse-pub","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-celebration","tag-fans","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-park-slope","tag-soccer","tag-soccer-fan","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}