Spain v Argentina: World Cup 2026 final – live

Luis de la Fuente says he will not man-mark Lionel Messi in the World Cup final, even though the Argentina captain has scored eight times and provided four assists and the Spain coach’s own experience suggests it might not be a bad idea.

In the buildup to Sunday’s final in New Jersey, De la Fuente told the story of the first time he encountered Messi, 22 years ago, when the Argentinian was a 16-year-old coming through at Barcelona, he was the youth-team coach at Sevilla and the under-19 cup draw brought them together in the last 16 in May 2004 at the Miniestadi.

“I’m going to tell you something funny about Messi,” De la Fuente said. “Look, I met Lionel Messi when I was coaching at Sevilla in division de honour [the national under-19 league] and we played a Copa del Rey game against Barcelona. We went to Barcelona. They had spoken very well about a boy called Messi. So, we put a man-marker on him. In the 70th minute it was 0-0. When they gave a yellow card to the player who was marking him, I took him off. And in 15 minutes, Messi scored four goals.”