Rich Weighs In on Spain Absolutely Suffocating Messi & Argentina to Win the 2026 World Cup

Zero shots on goal. That is what Argentina produced in a World Cup final, and it is the number that will follow this tournament around forever.

Spain are champions, and Rich did not spend much time pretending it was close. "Argentina fell apart," he said. "There's no two ways about it."

The prediction had already been on this air. Taylor Twellman came on last week and pointed back to the Super Bowl played in that same New York and New Jersey stadium, the one the Seahawks won on defense, and said the final would go the same way. It went exactly that way.

"Spain was all over Argentina like the proverbial white on rice," Rich said. "They were giving them no quarter, no space, no nothing."

The description that stuck came from Stu Holden on the broadcast. Triangles everywhere. Spaniards penning Argentina in, pushing them toward a boundary, and often not even letting them clear their own end. Rich said it seemed like Argentina could not string three touches together without being harassed or turning it over.

You can survive that for a while. You cannot survive it for two hours.

"After a while that's wearing on you and wearing on you and wearing on you," Rich said, "and then all of a sudden you look up and you're an hour and a half into this game and you don't even have a shot on goal."

Argentina's answer to the pressure was to lose its composure. Enzo Fernández, the man who scored the equalizer against England, collected two yellow cards inside ten minutes. The first came for dissent after he barked at the official. Rich noted he got lucky there, because he turned away before the sarcastic clapping started, and could have picked up both yellows in ten seconds instead.

The second one was not close. He flipped Cubarsí of Spain clean over, and while the whole Argentina bench waved their fingers no, the replay was the replay.

"The whole world saw it," Rich said. "A billion people just saw what you did."

Down a man, Argentina somehow kept the thing scoreless. Rich admitted he expected penalties, and admitted he wanted them, calling a shootout the most exciting thing in sports. He also admitted it would not have been fair, because Spain had outplayed them.

Ferran Torres solved it 106 minutes in with his first goal of the tournament, in the second period of extra time. Spain could exhale.

The most damning statistic came after. Lautaro Martínez's header to beat England in the semifinal, off what Rich called maybe the greatest assist you have ever seen, turned out to be Argentina's last shot on goal of the entire World Cup.

There was also the matter of Messi trying to get Cucurella sent off for briefly covering his mouth, which Rich read as an attempt to tattle rather than a real appeal.

And then the ugliness. Leandro Paredes going at everybody, hitting people, shoving people, objecting to Spain celebrating a World Cup they had just won.

"Get off the field," Rich said. "A classless finish to a tournament that otherwise was world class, first class."

Spain conceded once. Once. Rich floated the theory that their toughest opponent all tournament may have been Cape Verde in the opening match, back when everyone briefly decided Spain were not winning this thing.

As for Messi, Rich believes that is it. The next World Cup arrives when he is 43, and the show had just watched how Ronaldo looked at 41. The all-time goals record changed hands twice during the tournament, ending with Mbappé passing Messi for both the mark and the Golden Boot after his brace in the third-place game.

What Rich will miss is not just the football. It is the free refills and the ranch dressing, and a few hundred thousand visitors leaving with a different impression of the place.

"Congratulations to Spain," he said. "They did it with class. They did it with joy. And they did it with hardnosed defense."