Ferran Torres did not start the World Cup final, but he finished it
Spain had spent 105 minutes controlling Argentina without finding the goal that would settle the 2026 World Cup final. Argentina had defended deep, Emiliano Martínez had kept making saves, and Spain's pressure had produced very little space in the penalty area.
Then the substitute changed the game.
Ferran Torres came off the bench and scored in the 106th minute. Nico Williams, also introduced as a substitute, supplied the decisive action, heading Pedro Porro's cross down at the far post for Torres to finish first time. Spain won 1-0 and lifted the trophy. (fifa.com)
The goal was not simply a case of a fresh striker being in the right place. Spain's substitutions gave Luis de la Fuente additional pace and attacking movement during extra time, when Argentina's defensive workload had already been enormous.
That distinction matters. A substitution can be a replacement, but at this level it can also be a deliberate change in the problem the opponent has to solve.
The 2026 tournament produced several examples of managers using the bench in exactly that way.
Portugal used four substitutions to change the shape of a knockout match
Roberto Martínez's response against Croatia was even more aggressive.
Portugal trailed 1-0 in their Round of 32 match in Toronto when Gonçalo Ramos entered in the 62nd minute as part of a four-player substitution. Six minutes later, Cristiano Ronaldo equalised from the penalty spot. (fifa.com)
Martínez then made another significant decision: Ronaldo was replaced by Rúben Neves in the 81st minute.
On the surface, removing the player who had just equalised might look strange. Tactically, it made sense. Portugal needed more control in midfield while still retaining Ramos as the central attacking reference. FIFA's account describes the Ronaldo substitution as a midfield-reinforcement move, after which Ramos assumed the responsibility of playing as the area's main striker. (fifa.com)
The payoff arrived in stoppage time.
Rafael Leão delivered from the left, Ramos attacked the far-post area and headed Portugal ahead in the 94th minute. Portugal won 2-1. (fifa.com)
This was substitution as structural redesign. Martínez did not simply add another attacker because his team was behind. He changed who occupied the central attacking role and sacrificed Ronaldo to strengthen the midfield around the new configuration.
Deniz Undav showed why a substitute can be more than an energy injection
Germany's 2-1 victory over Côte d'Ivoire in the group stage offered the simplest version of the same idea.
Germany were behind after Franck Kessié's 30th-minute goal. Deniz Undav entered from the bench and scored twice, first in the 68th minute and again in the fourth minute of stoppage time. His second goal sent Germany through to the knockout phase. (fifa.com)
The important detail is not merely that Undav scored twice. His first goal came after Germany had spent much of the match trying to break through a Côte d'Ivoire side protecting its advantage.
A substitute striker changes the physical conditions of the final half-hour. Defenders who have spent an hour dealing with one forward suddenly face different movement, different pressing angles and different physical demands.
Undav's performance made that effect unusually visible: the player entering the match became the player who decided it.
Reuters later reported that substitutes had scored 43 of the first 215 goals of the tournament during the group stage, with Germany's Undav among the most productive players coming off the bench. (reuters.com)
That figure describes an outcome rather than proving that substitutions caused those goals. But it does show how frequently the bench mattered during the tournament's opening phase.
England discovered that a substitution can also protect a lead badly
The most instructive example may have been England's semifinal against Argentina, because the substitutions did not produce the intended result.
England were leading 1-0 when Thomas Tuchel made a double change in the 82nd minute, replacing Reece James with Dan Burn and Declan Rice with Nico O'Reilly. (aljazeera.com)
Tuchel later explained that England had become vulnerable to crosses and aerial balls, and that he wanted to close the spaces inside by moving to a back five. He also said the team remained in a 4-4-2 but became increasingly passive and unable to win the ball or keep possession. (fifa.com)
Argentina scored three minutes after the substitutions, when Enzo Fernández found the net following a move involving Lionel Messi. Lautaro Martínez then scored in stoppage time to complete a 2-1 comeback. (aljazeera.com)
That makes the sequence tactically interesting rather than simply a story about a "bad substitution."
Tuchel was responding to a real problem. England were conceding territory, crosses and aerial situations. His solution was to add defensive security.
The problem was what that security did to England's possession and pressure. Once England stopped threatening Argentina with the ball, Argentina could attack repeatedly. The substitution changed the match even though it did not change the score in England's favour.
Substitutions became a way of managing different phases of the same match
This is where the 2026 World Cup's bench tactics become more interesting than a list of late winners.
A manager can use a substitution for at least four different purposes: add attacking quality, protect a lead, change the team's structure, or alter the physical rhythm of the game.
Portugal against Croatia demonstrated the structural version.
England against Argentina demonstrated the defensive version.
Germany against Côte d'Ivoire demonstrated the attacking version.
Spain against Argentina demonstrated the extra-time version, when fatigue and space make fresh attacking movement particularly valuable.
Switzerland provided another clean example. Johan Manzambi and Ruben Vargas came off the bench against Bosnia and Herzegovina and scored Switzerland's first two goals after half-time. Manzambi eventually scored twice, becoming the youngest Swiss player to score multiple World Cup goals in a match. (fifa.com)
The pattern is not accidental, although individual goals obviously depend on the players' execution. Modern international squads are deep enough that the second group of players can be used almost as a second tactical unit.
The five-substitution rule made timing part of the tactical battle
Managers also had to work within a specific constraint: teams can use up to five substitutes in official competitions, normally across three substitution opportunities, with half-time changes treated separately. (theifab.com)
That means a manager is not simply deciding who should come on. They are deciding when to spend one of the available windows.
Use a window early and the team can respond immediately to a tactical problem, but it may lose flexibility later.
Wait until the final 15 minutes and the manager preserves options, but the opponent may already have established control.
Portugal's four-player change against Croatia illustrates why grouping substitutions can be valuable. One stoppage allowed Martínez to alter several positions simultaneously rather than making four separate interventions.
The rule therefore creates another layer of strategy. Substitutions are resources, and the opportunities to deploy them are resources too.
Argentina's final showed that not every substitution is tactical
The World Cup final also provided a useful warning against reading every change as a masterstroke or tactical failure.
Argentina lost both starting centre-backs to injury during the match. Lisandro Martínez was replaced by Nicolás Otamendi before half-time, while Facundo Medina replaced Cristian Romero after 70 minutes. (fifa.com)
Those changes were forced by circumstances rather than designed to exploit an opponent.
That distinction matters when analysing substitutions after the fact. A substitute's involvement in a goal does not automatically mean the manager predicted the goal. Likewise, a team conceding shortly after a substitution does not automatically mean the change caused the defensive collapse.
The match has to be read through the sequence: scoreline, player roles, injuries, tactical shape, game state and what the opponent was doing at that moment.
The 2026 tournament made the bench look less like insurance and more like another tactical unit
The strongest substitution stories of the World Cup were not all about famous players scoring late goals.
They were about managers using different players to create a different match.
Martínez changed Portugal's midfield and central attack against Croatia. Tuchel tried to turn England into a more secure defensive structure against Argentina, with consequences he could not control. Germany found a decisive second-half striker in Undav. De la Fuente waited until extra time and then had two substitutes combine for the goal that won Spain the World Cup.
That last example is the clearest expression of the trend.
Torres did not need 90 minutes to justify his selection. He needed the right 15. Williams did not need to start the final to influence it. And De la Fuente did not need to abandon Spain's underlying approach. He needed fresh players capable of executing it when the match had reached its most physically demanding stage.
At the 2026 World Cup, the starting XI increasingly looked like only the first version of a team's plan. The match could belong to the players who started it, but the decisive version of the team was often the one a manager built from the bench.
