Spain returned to Madrid on Monday to celebrate its second FIFA World Cup title, an open-top bus winding through the capital toward Cibeles Square where as many as one million fans, Spanish royalty, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez awaited.
La Roja defeated Lionel Messi’s Argentina 1-0 after extra time in the 2026 final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Sunday, July 19. The victory gave Spain its first World Cup since 2010 and only its second overall — a remarkably thin haul for a nation that has produced some of the most technically gifted squads of the modern era.
Lamine Yamal, the tournament’s breakout star, was photographed celebrating on the pitch with his younger brother Keyne beside a giant replica of the trophy. The images from Getty and AFP photographers captured the 19-year-old forward in the moments after the final whistle, a scene that quickly circulated across global sports coverage.
The Madrid parade followed a familiar route for Spanish football celebrations. The team traveled through central Madrid on an open-top bus before arriving at Cibeles Square, the traditional gathering point for the city’s sporting triumphs. Spanish royalty and Sánchez were on hand for the ceremony, according to Yahoo Sports, which originally reported the event via USA TODAY.
The timing carried an odd symmetry. Eight years to the day before Spain lifted the 2026 trophy, Cristiano Ronaldo was dismantling them in Sochi.
On June 15, 2018, Portugal and Spain opened their Group B campaigns with a 3-3 draw that became one of the iconic matches of the tournament. Ronaldo scored all three Portuguese goals — a penalty won after Nacho fouled him inside the box, a long-range strike that David de Gea fumbled through his gloves, and a late free kick into the top right corner after Gerard Piqué brought him down just outside the area.
That third goal, taken with the clock draining toward full time, curled over the Spanish wall and past a rooted De Gea. It completed the 51st World Cup hat trick and made Ronaldo, at 33, the oldest player to score three in a single World Cup match, surpassing Netherlands forward Rob Rensenbrink, who managed it against Iran in 1978 at 30. Ronaldo also became the fourth player to score in four different World Cups, joining Pelé, Uwe Seeler, and Miroslav Klose.
The match was a statistical anomaly in its own right. Spain out-possessed Portugal comfortably, as they tended to do under Fernando Hierro’s interim stewardship, and generated higher-quality chances through Diego Costa’s brace and Nacho’s half-volley off the post. Ronaldo’s three goals came from an xG profile that would normally yield perhaps one. That is what made the night memorable — and what made the free kick, a dead-ball situation where finishing quality can override probability models, the lasting image.
Spain recovered from that group-stage draw to reach the round of 16 in 2018, where they lost to Russia on penalties. They did not make it past the group stage in 2022. The eight-year gap between that Sochi night and Monday’s parade in Madrid brackets a period in which Spanish football rebuilt around a generation led by Yamal and others who were children when Ronaldo’s free kick sailed past De Gea.
Now the trophy is theirs. The wall that Ronaldo bent it over is long gone.
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