World Cup 2026 final: Messi’s last match, and everything else to know

Argentina is 90 minutes from becoming the first team since Brazil (in 1958 and 1962) to win back-to-back World Cups, and Spain is one win from a second title, 16 years after its only other final appearance in 2010. Sunday’s 2026 World Cup final at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium settles both storylines at once, against the backdrop of what’s almost certainly the last World Cup match of Messi’s career. He’s 39.

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Here’s what you need to know before the 2026 World Cup final kickoff.

Spain vs Argentina

The final kicks off at 3 pm ET on Sunday, 19 July, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. FIFA has renamed the venue “New York New Jersey Stadium” for the tournament. For anyone in China’s Greater Bay Area, that’s 3 am on Monday, 20 July, Hong Kong and Macao time.

Spain arrives as the form team of the tournament, unbeaten in 37 straight matches since a friendly loss to Colombia in March 2024, and has conceded just once across seven games this summer. Argentina arrives as a team that keeps finding late goals when it needs them most – its round-of-16 win over Egypt and the semifinal against England were both settled in the final minutes.

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Style-wise, it’s a mismatch. Spain controls games start to finish, while Argentina has needed a moment of chaos, and usually a moment of Messi, to escape nearly every knockout match it’s played this tournament.

How they got here

Spain’s win over France in Arlington, Texas, on 14 July had the feel of a final in its own right. Mikel Oyarzabal converted a penalty in the 22nd minute after Lucas Digne fouled Yamal in the box, and Pedro Porro doubled the lead in the 58th, finishing off a Dani Olmo pass after ghosting into space. Spain needed only two shots on target the entire match, and both found the net. It was their sixth clean sheet in seven games, and it ended any hope of a third straight final for Les Bleus.

Argentina’s win over England a day later was messier. England led 1-0 from the 55th minute through an Anthony Gordon finish, then spent the rest of the match defending the lead instead of chasing a second, a decision Harry Kane admitted afterward cost his side the game. Messi, kept quiet for long stretches, engineered both Argentina goals in the final ten minutes, setting up Enzo Fernández’s equaliser in the 85th before sending in a cross for substitute Lautaro Martínez to head in the winner two minutes into stoppage time.

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Martínez had told teammates before coming on that he’d score. “I dreamed it, I swear,” he said after the final whistle.

One more match for France and England

Before the final, there’s unfinished business – France vs England for third place, Saturday, 18 July, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Kickoff is 5 pm ET, or 5 am Sunday, 19 July, Hong Kong and Macao time.

It’s a rematch of the 2022 World Cup quarterfinal, which France won 2-1, and it doubles as Didier Deschamps’ farewell match after 14 years as France coach, a run that included a title in 2018 and a final in 2022. Neither team wanted to be here, but there’s a bronze medal on the table, US$2 million more in prize money than fourth place, and a chance to avoid ending the tournament on back-to-back losses.

The Golden Boot race isn’t over

Messi and Kylian Mbappé each have eight goals – the first time in World Cup history two players have reached eight or more this late in the tournament. Messi leads the first tiebreaker, four assists to three, largely because of his two assists in the England semifinal.

France’s exit locks Mbappé’s tally at eight, and his only chance left to close the gap is Saturday’s third-place match – the first time in his career a World Cup will end for him without a final appearance.

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Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham, both on six goals, are mathematically still in it too, but they’d need a big night in Miami to matter.

History’s first World Cup halftime show

For the first time in the tournament’s 96-year history, the final includes a halftime show. Madonna, Shakira, BTS, and Justin Bieber co-headline an eleven-minute set curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, with Burna Boy, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and a Staten Island elementary school choir also performing.

Jennifer Hudson sings the national anthem before kickoff, and a separate closing ceremony featuring Tom Cruise, Robbie Williams, Nicole Scherzinger, and IShowSpeed runs for 90 minutes before the match itself.

Whatever happens Sunday, it closes out the biggest World Cup ever staged – 48 teams, 104 matches, three host countries.