Deportes

The final of this year’s World Cup could last up to half an hour, something unprecedented until now and which has generated a lot of criticism because it would mean doubling the usual break time between the first half and the second, completely breaking the rhythm of the players. The reason is none other than to accommodate the endless list of artists that FIFA wants to perform during the break and that hardly fit into the 15 minutes established by the regulations.

Seba, my brother-in-law, has been living in Berlin since the year of the catapum but is still very Argentine.

What could not happen on March 27 in Doha will become a reality next Sunday in New York. The Finalissima, which was supposed to pit the European champion against the champion of America and the world, will take place with the universal title at stake. In spring, the conflict between the United States and Israel with Iran, which destabilized the region and the world in general, prevented Spain and Argentina from facing each other in the second official match in their entire history. That match will now be much more important. Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal will face each other for the first and presumably last time on a playing field. 39 years and longevity records for the Argentine. 19 and precocity marks for the Spanish. The best player in history against the leader of the new generation of footballers.

The Atlanta Stadium is the new Azteca for Argentina, a stage for legendary comebacks and illogical victories for posterity. Mysticism and heart embraced once again to give Messi and the albiceleste an extra life. There is no team that survives better on the edge. There is no national team that endures more when everything is against them. Messi does not want to leave and his teammates do not let him go. In the chaos, Argentina reigns. Let the orderly Spain beware in the final, the albiceleste can never be counted out. No one beats madness.

The 2026 World Cup is entering its final stretch. In a new edition of Hay Mundial, we analyze Spain’s 2-0 victory over France, a win that places La Roja in the grand final sixteen years later. We review the key points of the match, the team’s performance, and the standout names that explain Spain’s advancement.

The legendary boxer José Legrá, “the puma of Baracoa,” has passed away in Madrid at the age of 83, leaving memorable fights and extraordinary charm in memory. In his human legacy, he was the protagonist of the best sports anecdote one can remember: his first audience with the dictator Francisco Franco at El Pardo, where he was received, as was customary, after winning the world featherweight title in Cardiff against the local idol Howard Winstone.

France displayed military power during the parade on the Champs-Élysées on the occasion of the July 14th celebration. Just hours later, in Dallas, “the fire front” (as the press has dubbed it) was neutralized, without gunpowder, by “the Spanish Armada” (front page of Le Parisien), plunging the country, so prone to exaggerated self-esteem, into a new phase of collective depression.

Thousands of football fans gathered this Sunday at the Zócalo in Mexico City to exchange 2026 World Cup stickers in an attempt to break a Guinness World Record for simultaneous sticker swapping.

I experienced a déjà-vu this weekend when Lionel Scaloni tried to downplay the historical tension of the semifinal between Argentina and England. I had a flashback to an interview I did 40 years ago with Diego Maradona before another Argentina-England in a World Cup, the one with “the hand…

At many times England plays with two center forwards. Tuchel has pushed Jude Bellingham so far forward that his presence confuses the defenses, because he comes in where only Harry Kane is expected. Both have taken advantage of that confusion to become one of the most prolific pairs in a World Cup.