The Champions Who Forgot to Play Football! By @Microinteracti1

Here is a statistic to frame above your fireplace and show your grandchildren: Argentina’s first shot of any kind in Sunday’s World Cup final arrived in the 115th minute, a record of futility for a World Cup. Spain finished with 20 shots to Argentina’s two, twelve on target to none. Not one. In a final. ESPN called it arguably the worst World Cup final in living memory, and that was the polite version.

NBC Sports put it plainly: Argentina were more concerned with fouling and fighting than playing football, and the way several players behaved was a disgrace that tarnished their legacy.

According to Football365, Scaloni’s men committed more first-half fouls than they completed passes into the attacking third. Their 12.29 fouls per game was, per NBC, far and away the highest of any semifinalist.

The punditry class reached for the thesaurus. “It’s a disgrace,” said Gary Neville on ITV. Alan Shearer told the BBC that Leandro Paredes “threw two or three haymakers into someone’s face” in the post-whistle brawl that earned him a red card after the final had ended. Joe Hart called it “disgusting.” Lee Dixon called it “anti-football.” Wayne Rooney simply shrugged: we’ve seen this from Argentina before.

And where was the captain? Sitting on the turf, weeping, while his teammates disgraced the shirt he made famous. Sorry, but no. A captain’s job in that moment is not to cry. It is to get up, wade into the scrum, grab the idiots by the collar and order them to behave like gentlemen. Messi shook every Spanish hand, as Hart noted, and fair play. But leadership was required, and leadership stayed seated.

Consider the route, too: a group of Algeria, Austria and Jordan, then Cape Verde in the round of 32. All the jeopardy of a heated driveway.

Spain were everything football should be. One goal conceded in eight matches, the fewest ever for a champion. Rodri took the Golden Ball, Ferran Torres the trophy. As Norwegian commentator Trond Johannessen put it: mighty scenes, but the right outcome. The victory bandits were finally caught.

Wherever Argentina play next, anywhere on Earth, they will walk out to a wall of boos. They earned every decibel.