Spain's 2026 World Cup triumph was not just adding a second star to the 'La Roja' jersey; it placed the Spanish national team in an exceptional place in football history, as they became the first team to win the World Cup twice while also holding their continental title. Spain secured the Mundial by beating Argentina 1-0 after extra time in a final held at New York New Jersey Stadium, winning the world title for the second time after their first achievement in South Africa in 2010. With this victory, Spain's 2026 edition joined a rare list of three world champion teams that entered the tournament as continental champions. West Germany was the first to open this door, after winning the European Championship in 1972, then capitalizing on home advantage to win the 1974 World Cup, thus holding both European and world titles simultaneously. Thirty-six years later, Spain repeated the scene in a more dazzling fashion, as their golden generation won the 2008 European Championship before climbing to the top of the World Cup podium for the first time in their history at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. UEFA records confirm that West Germany and Spain were among the few teams to have held both European and world titles together. As for Argentina, they wrote the first chapter for South America, entering the Qatar World Cup as champions of the 2021 Copa America, then finishing the tournament by lifting the third World Cup in their history in 2022, becoming the first team to hold the Copa America title and successfully win the subsequent World Cup. Spain returned in 2026 to claim the record outright, adding the World Cup to their 2024 European Championship title, repeating their previous feat in 2010 and confirming their ability to turn continental supremacy into global dominance. The list of teams that have won the World Cup while holding the continental title now includes four cases: West Germany in 1974, Spain in 2010 and 2026, and Argentina in 2022. A rare achievement confirming that reaching the summit of the continent may be the first step towards scaling the summit of the world, but Spain alone managed to traverse this historic path twice.