Ferran Torres’s history moment echoes Andres Iniesta’s 2010 World Cup-winning goal

In time, the two great Spanish generations will be compared side by side and perhaps it will not be a flattering comparison for this modern side. Many of the Spanish players watching from up in the stands were greats of the game, elite leaders, doyennes of their field, players who changed how football was played, how it was understood.

The same cannot be said for much of this far less-heralded team. But they have delivered the World Cup in the great Spanish tradition. Spain have an identity, a way of playing the game that is bigger than any individual player, more important than any coach. The same cannot be said for any of the other major powers at this World Cup, at least not to the same extent, not with the same clarity. What Germany, Italy and Portugal would give for an identity right now.

And so it felt fitting that Torres’s goal should mimic Iniesta’s strike. Iniesta had been injured early in the World Cup and took his time to emerge as an influential figure in Spain’s triumph in South Africa. Here Torres had to bide his time, facing some criticism at home for some of his earlier performances, waiting for moments from the bench. A lot of frustration went through that corner flag.

Torres, like Iniesta, is a Barcelona player. For so long, Spain’s great weakness was that split between players across the divide of Barcelona and Real Madrid. The Spanish squad was not a harmonious place. They overcame that in 2010 by finally working together towards a common goal. They overcame it here by simply not selecting any Madrid players.

Torres is 26. He still has time to write a legacy at Barcelona, to become a hero of the Camp Nou. He could yet follow the path of Mario Gotze, Germany’s winning goalscorer in 2014, whose club career never reached the heights it threatened. But the truth is that nothing he ever does will compare to the moment when his boot crashed into that ball and no one could stop it. Like Iniesta, Ferran Torres will forever be the man who won Spain the World Cup.