Spain’s World Cup win in NFL terms: Comparing World Cup champions' run to best defenses over the years

Spain’s World Cup win in NFL terms: Comparing World Cup champions' run to best defenses over the years originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

When Spain started its World Cup run with a 0-0 draw against massive underdog Cape Verde, it was fair to question the ceiling of Luis de la Fuente's squad.

A dominant defense matters, but you need to score goals at some point to win the World Cup. Many wondered whether Spain had the offense to go all the way.

All of those questions were answered on Sunday, when Spain completed the run to a world championship with a 1-0 win that was far more dominant in the box score than on the scoreboard. Spain set a new record by allowing just one goal throughout its entire World Cup run, despite playing an extra game compared to previous champions.

Spain's victory resembled some of the most memorable Super Bowl runs in NFL history, in which defenses led the way.

Here's a look at Spain's World Cup win in NFL terms.

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Spain's World Cup win in NFL terms

2000 Ravens

Lamine Yamal is a star, but he didn't look like one of the world's best players in the World Cup. In fact, no one really did for Spain. Mikel Oyarzabal led the squad in scoring with five goals, but Spain's World Cup run was a true team effort that succeeded because everyone knew how to do their job well.

The 2000 Ravens were built similarly. QB Trent Dilfer did what he had to do under center, but as far as Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks go, he didn't have to shoulder too much of the load. Baltimore allowed a ridiculous 10.3 points per game in the regular season and an even more remarkable 5.8 points per game in the playoffs, capped by a 34-7 Super Bowl win over the Giants.

The Ravens didn't take down a giant like Spain did by dethroning Messi, but they flashed the same kind of overwhelming defensive dominance that the Spaniards did.

Baltimore's defense wasn't faceless; Ray Lewis and Rod Woodson are both Hall of Famers. Spain isn't faceless, either. Still, both teams were defined far more by the sum of their parts than by any individual star.

MORE:Spain vs. Argentina player ratings

2015 Broncos

The best modern-day example of a defensive-powered Super Bowl run is the 2015 Broncos. While most Super Bowl winners have strong defenses - the reigning champion Seahawks were dominant on that side of the ball - it's hard to overstate how instrumental Denver's defense was in winning the franchise a championship.

By 2015, an aging Peyton Manning was a shell of himself. After throwing nine touchdowns and 17 interceptions in an injury-riddled regular season, Manning figured out by the time the playoffs arrived that he didn't have the arm he once did and learned how to be a game manager. He let the Broncos' defense go to work, and that was all Denver needed.

The Broncos narrowly escaped the Patriots in the AFC championship game as Von Miller swarmed Tom Brady, with the game ending on an intercepted two-point conversion attempt. Just as the biggest star in the World Cup final wore an Argentina jersey, the player everyone wanted to see in Super Bowl 50 was newly minted MVP Cam Newton. Newton's coronation didn't last long, as the underdog Broncos made his life miserable all night long, holding him to a 43.9 percent completion rate and forcing four total fumbles against the Panthers.

Super Bowl 50 could be remembered for Manning going out on top, but the lasting image is Newton hesitating to recover a fumble forced by the Broncos' defense. For Spain, Ferran Torres' goal will rightfully go down in history, but the World Cup was won by goal prevention.

MORE:Why Rodri won Golden Ball over Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe

2013 Seahawks

Spain's elite defense went into a much-anticipated final as a slight favorite against the biggest star in the world and flat-out dominated. The 2013 Seahawks played Super Bowl 48 under similar circumstances. Seattle was actually a slight underdog against a historic Broncos team, and Peyton Manning had just put up perhaps the best season by any quarterback in NFL history. When the game started, though, it took mere minutes to find out who the better team was.

Just by nature of the sport, it took much longer for Spain's dominance to be reflected by the scoreboard on Sunday, but the result was the same as the Seahawks more than 12 years earlier. A Broncos offense that couldn't be stifled all year long had absolutely no answers against the best defense in Seahawks history, and an Argentina attack that was unstoppable late in games was shut out entirely by a historic Spanish defense,

1985 Bears

The 1985 Bears are considered perhaps the best team in NFL history, and at the very least the prime example of what a dominant NFL defense looks like.

It may seem premature to put Spain in that category. In fact, it probably is; Spain wasn't even favored to win its semifinal match. Still, no team has ever prevented goals like Spain just did in this World Cup. De la Fuente's squad is the first champion to allow fewer than two goals in the tournament, even while playing an additional game, and Spain outscored opponents 13-1 to the tune of a 7-0-1 record.

The 1985 Bears (15-1) outscored opponents 91-10 in the playoffs. It didn't feel like that kind of dominance for Spain at all times, but that might just be the nature of a sport that rarely has large margins. When push came to shove in the semifinals and finals, Spain was far and away the better team and took down the top two goal-scorers in World Cup history to finish the job.