[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"header-nav":3,"footer-nav":29,"article-ranking-the-greatest-world-cup-finals-1970-2022":82,"category-counts-nav":95,"related-ranking-the-greatest-world-cup-finals-1970-2022":105},[4,8,11,14,17,20,23,26],{"label":5,"to":6,"exact":7},"Home","\u002F",true,{"label":9,"to":10},"World Cup","\u002Fworldcup",{"label":12,"to":13},"Standings","\u002Fstandings",{"label":15,"to":16},"Football","\u002Fcategory\u002Ffootball",{"label":18,"to":19},"Basketball","\u002Fcategory\u002Fbasketball",{"label":21,"to":22},"Tennis","\u002Fcategory\u002Ftennis",{"label":24,"to":25},"F1","\u002Fcategory\u002Ff1",{"label":27,"to":28},"Long Reads","\u002Fcategory\u002Flong-reads",{"brand":30,"columns":32,"tagline":80,"copyright":81},{"description":31},"In-depth sports journalism covering football, basketball, tennis, F1, and beyond. Daily analysis, long reads, and expert opinion.",[33,51,59],{"heading":34,"links":35},"Leagues",[36,39,42,45,48],{"label":37,"to":38},"Premier League","\u002Ftag\u002Fpremier-league",{"label":40,"to":41},"La Liga","\u002Ftag\u002Fla-liga",{"label":43,"to":44},"NBA","\u002Ftag\u002Fnba",{"label":46,"to":47},"Formula 1","\u002Ftag\u002Fformula-1",{"label":49,"to":50},"Champions League","\u002Ftag\u002Fchampions-league",{"heading":52,"links":53},"Content",[54,56,57],{"label":55,"to":16},"Analysis",{"label":27,"to":28},{"label":58,"to":16},"Data & Stats",{"heading":60,"links":61},"Company",[62,65,68,71,74,77],{"label":63,"to":64},"Terms of Service","\u002Fservice",{"label":66,"to":67},"Privacy Policy","\u002Fprivacy",{"label":69,"to":70},"Editorial Policy","\u002Feditorial",{"label":72,"to":73},"Contact Us","\u002Fcontact",{"label":75,"to":76},"About Us","\u002Fabout",{"label":78,"to":79},"Website Disclaimer","\u002Fdisclaimer","Built for the love of sport","© SportPulse. All rights reserved.",{"title":83,"slug":84,"category":85,"badge":86,"author":87,"excerpt":88,"date":89,"readTime":90,"image":91,"imageAlt":83,"tags":92,"body":93,"_path":94},"From the Azteca to Lusail: The Greatest World Cup Finals Ever Played","ranking-the-greatest-world-cup-finals-1970-2022","football","Feature","Sarah Martinez"," ranking World Cup finals is subjective chaos, but three matches stand above the rest as transcendent sporting theatre.","2026-07-17 12:01:36","7 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F1af7\u002Flive\u002Fae47a880-814e-11f1-bee8-53ce494e1abc.png",[9],"## The Impossible Question\n\nWhat makes a World Cup final truly great?\n\nIs it the quality of the football? The stakes of the moment? The narrative weight of a single player chasing immortality? Or is it something less tangible: the atmosphere, the backdrop, the sense that you are witnessing something that will be replayed for decades?\n\nEvery four years, the global game conspires to produce a finale that is supposed to cement itself in history. The reality is that most finals fail the test. They are tight, nervous, suffocated by fear. Legends are often made in semifinals; finals are where knees buckle.\n\nYet a precious few transcend the occasion. They do not merely decide a tournament. They redefine the sport.\n\nWhen you attempt to rank the greatest World Cup finals, you are not just judging ninety minutes of football. You are weighing cultural moments, tactical revolutions, and the sheer theatrical weight of a single afternoon. It is subjective, contentious, and deeply personal.\n\nBut three finals rise above the rest with an undeniable, gravitational pull.\n\n## Brazil at the Azteca, 1970\n\nThe gold standard.\n\nItaly stood across the field in the suffocating Mexico City heat. They were hardened, cynical, and magnificent in their own right. They had reached the final through endurance and defiance.\n\nBut Brazil were not playing a football match. They were conducting a symphony.\n\nThe **4-1** scoreline flattered Italy only in the sense that it suggested a degree of competitiveness that never truly existed. Brazil scored four, hit the woodwork twice, and produced a goal so breathtaking that it is still replayed as the ultimate distillation of the beautiful game.\n\nThe fourth goal. Carlos Alberto. The ball traveled through **eight players** without an Italian touching it. Tostao to Clodoaldo. Clodoaldo to Rivelino. Rivelino to Jairzinho. Jairzinho to Pele. Pele through the line. Carlos Alberto arriving like a freight train off the right flank.\n\nThwack.\n\nThe most famous goal in World Cup history.\n\n> \"I was just running. I knew Pele would find me. He always found everyone.\"\n\nThat Brazil team did not just win the World Cup. They preserved it. They turned a tournament into a museum piece, a permanent exhibition of what football could look like when genius was choreographed into a collective vision.\n\n### Why 1970 reigns supreme\n\n- **Pele at his peak** of influence, scoring and creating at **29 years old**\n- The goal average of **2.96 per match** across the entire tournament\n- A Brazilian side that won **six out of six** games, the only team to do so in a **16-team format**\n- The first World Cup broadcast globally in color, cementing the visual mythology\n\n## Lusail's Coronation, 2022\n\nFor **fifty-six minutes**, it was a procession.\n\nArgentina led France **2-0** in the Lusail Iconic Stadium. Lionel Messi had his goal. Angel Di Maria had his fairy tale. The trophy was being measured for engravings.\n\nThen Kylian Mbappe happened.\n\n**Ninety-seven seconds.** That is all it took for France to transform from a lifeless husk into a roaring beast. Mbappe scored a penalty in the **80th minute**. Then, in stoppage time, he smashed a volley that defied geometry, logic, and the Argentine bench's collective sanity.\n\n**2-2.**\n\nExtra time. A tournament within a tournament. Messi tapped in from close range in the **108th minute** to complete his coronation. Mbappe answered from the spot again in the **118th minute**.\n\n**3-3.**\n\nA World Cup final had never seen a hat-trick since **1966**. Now it had seen one from a **23-year-old** while his opponent, a **35-year-old** playing his final international match, was completing the most significant individual narrative in the sport's history.\n\nPenalties. Gonzalo Montiel. The net rippled. Argentina won the World Cup.\n\n> \"What could I say? Many people, including myself, thought it was over. But football sometimes goes beyond logic.\"\n\n### The numbers behind the chaos\n\n- **6 goals** in the final, the most since **1958**\n- **2 penalties** awarded in a single final for the first time\n- **166 goals** across the tournament, a record\n- Mbappe's **8 goals** earned him the Golden Boot, one ahead of Messi\n- The match drew a global television audience of approximately **1.5 billion** viewers\n\nThe tension was never about the goals alone. It was the collapse, the resurrection, the second collapse, and the penalty shootout conclusion that etched it into memory.\n\nThis was a final that bent drama into absurdity and emerged as a masterclass in resilience.\n\n## England's Home Triumph, 1966\n\nFor English football, it is the origin story.\n\nFor everyone else, it is a monument to a single, controversial moment that still echoes in pubs, parlors, and post-match debates.\n\n Geoff Hurst's second goal in the **101st minute**. The ball struck the crossbar, bounced down, and the referee awarded the goal after consulting his linesman.\n\n苏联 researchers later concluded it did not cross the line.\n\nModern technology suggests it did not fully cross either.\n\nBut in **1966**, at Wembley Stadium, the moment was not about pixels or projection lines. It was about timing, nerve, and the audacity of a player who had been a surprise selection to even start the match.\n\nHurst completed his hat-trick in the dying seconds of a **4-2** victory over West Germany. He remains the only man to score three in a World Cup final.\n\n> \"Some people are on the pitch. They think it is all over. It is now!\"\n\nThose words from commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme became as iconic as the goal itself.\n\n### The enduring legacy of '66\n\n- **96,000 fans** packed into Wembley Stadium\n- The match attracted a UK television audience of roughly **32.3 million**\n- Hurst's hat-trick remains the only one in a World Cup final\n- England's only major tournament victory to this day, a **57-year drought** and counting\n\n1966 carries weight because it is not just a match but a mythos. It was the moment England hosted and won, cementing the tournament's stature as a global spectacle.\n\n## The Lower Tier of Greatness\n\nHonorable mentions must be acknowledged.\n\n**1974** delivered the Total Football of the Netherlands against the pragmatism of West Germany. It was a clash of ideologies. But the match itself was sloppy at times, defined more by what these sides represented than what they produced.\n\n**1986** saw Argentina and West Germany in a grudge match that produced a **3-2** thriller for the neutral but was overshadowed by Diego Maradona's broader tournament.\n\n**1958** was Pele's announcement. He scored a double in a **5-2** win over Sweden at **17 years old**. The final was exciting, but Sweden were never the equal of the Brazilians. It was a coronation, not a contest.\n\n## What Makes These Three Different\n\n1970, 2022, and 1966 each possess an ingredient that cannot be manufactured.\n\nThey have **narrative closure**. Pele's story in 1970 was about a man who had been kicked out of two previous tournaments and returned to the pinnacle. Messi's story in 2022 was the resolution of a career-long chase. Hurst and England in 1966 were about a nation asserting itself on the sport it invented.\n\nThe remaining finals, however competitive, often lack the story arc.\n\n1998's France-Brazil was lopsided. 2010's Spain-Netherlands was marred by brutality. 2014's Germany-Argentina was tense but one-sided in the end.\n\nGreatness demands not just a match but a moment when the sport, the stage, and the stakes align perfectly.\n\n## The Subjective Verdict\n\nRanking them is an exercise in personal bias.\n\nIf you value the aesthetics of attacking football as a collective expression, nothing beats **1970**. The heat of Mexico, the magic of that fourth goal, the majesty of Pele in yellow. It remains the benchmark for what the World Cup should look like.\n\nIf you value drama, chaos, and the sheer sporting spectacle of two giants trading blows until the end, **2022** takes the crown. It was the most unhinged World Cup final ever played. A narrative so absurd that no screenwriter would have dared propose it.\n\nAnd if you value the weight of history, **1966** still stands unshakeable. A home final, a hat-trick, and a moment of controversy that has fueled **decades of debate**.\n\nThree finals. Three distinct definitions of greatness. Each one earned its place not through the scoreline alone but by becoming a permanent fixture in the global football consciousness.\n\nThe question was always going to be subjective.\n\nBut the memories are not. They are etched in the archives, replayed in documentary after documentary, and passed down through generations.\n\nFrom the Azteca to Lusail, the World Cup final remains the biggest stage in sports.\n\nOnly a precious few have truly risen to it.","\u002Farticles\u002Franking-the-greatest-world-cup-finals-1970-2022",[96,97,98,99,85,100,101,102,103,104],"analysis","basketball","cricket","f1","general","golf","mma","long-reads","tennis",[106,120,133],{"id":107,"stem":107,"path":108,"title":109,"category":85,"badge":110,"badgeType":111,"author":112,"authorRole":113,"authorInitials":114,"date":115,"readTime":116,"image":117,"imageAlt":109,"tags":118,"excerpt":119},"jimenez-tears-as-mexico-tactical-control-demolishes-ten-man-south-africa","\u002Farticles\u002Fjimenez-tears-as-mexico-tactical-control-demolishes-ten-man-south-africa","Jiménez Tears as Mexico's Pressing Structure Dismantles South Africa","Match Report","tag","Elena Rossi","SportPulse Contributor","ER","2026-06-30 05:16:47","5 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fi.guim.co.uk\u002Fimg\u002Fmedia\u002Fcf45061454b82ac0fa1b13152e2b8992298a8604\u002F587_0_2913_2330\u002Fmaster\u002F2913.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=f4049bf53f95468f34223b15c5eb2e2e","World Cup, International Football","Raúl Jiménez wept after his first World Cup goal capped a dominant tactical display by co-hosts Mexico against ten-man South Africa.",{"id":121,"stem":121,"path":122,"title":123,"category":85,"badge":86,"badgeType":124,"author":125,"authorRole":126,"authorInitials":127,"date":128,"readTime":129,"image":130,"imageAlt":123,"tags":131,"excerpt":132},"baloucoune-returns-ireland-recall-against-all-blacks-auckland","\u002Farticles\u002Fbaloucoune-returns-ireland-recall-against-all-blacks-auckland","Baloucoune Recall Signals Ireland Intent Against All Blacks","category","James Chen","Senior Football Analyst","JC","2026-07-16 00:18:12","6 min read","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fbaloucoune-returns-ireland-recall-against-all-blacks-auckland.webp","Nations Championship, Rugby, Ireland","Robert Baloucoune's return for Ireland's Nations Championship clash with New Zealand in Auckland signals a statement of attacking intent.",{"id":134,"stem":134,"path":135,"title":136,"category":85,"badge":86,"badgeType":124,"author":137,"authorRole":113,"authorInitials":138,"date":139,"readTime":129,"image":140,"imageAlt":136,"tags":141,"excerpt":142},"maradona-1986-england-quarter-final-azteca","\u002Farticles\u002Fmaradona-1986-england-quarter-final-azteca","Maradona vs England: The Day One Man Rewrote Football History","Marcus Wright","MW","2026-07-15 03:50:02","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F8e3b\u002Flive\u002F977ad240-7e23-11f1-b976-0b9c15b0ccfc.jpg","World Cup, Argentina","Four years after the Falklands War, Diego Maradona single-handedly dismantled England in a match soaked in politics, brilliance, and controversy."]