After watching football matches for over a month, we finally have the 2026 FIFA World Cup winner: Spain. The Spanish national team defeated Argentina 1-0 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, and if you’ve been following the tournament closely, you may have noticed the prevalent hairstyle trend of frosted tips on the field. (With honorable mention for the Erling Haaland-style man buns.) It was on full display Sunday when the champions took the stage to accept their trophies and the three star players showed off their long dyed blonde hair.
Right-winger Lamin Yamal kept his hair short, dyeing some of it pale yellow rather than pale yellow. Left winger Nico Williams’s hair was quite pale with dark dreadlocks, which were tied up for the match. And defender Mark Cucurella had shoulder-length curls and the ends dyed orangey yellow.
Many players from different countries attended the 2026 World Cup with frosted tips, and as the competition wound down, there were fewer and fewer people wearing the hairstyle like Curacao’s Tahit Chong, Canada’s Derek Cornelius and Tunisia’s Hannibal Mejbri, leaving its final three stalwarts—Yamal, Williams and Cucurella—to carry the torch. (This was not dissimilar to many World Cup players, who wore sparkly pink cleats throughout the tournament.) Although this hairstyle was famous for its heyday in the late and early ’90s, international players throughout the tournament wrote a new playbook for how to maintain this style.
The celebrity hair stylist said, “On curls, coils and textured hair, lighter ends emphasize shape and movement differently than straight hair, giving this trend a distinctly modern, global feel rather than evoking an early 2000s ideal.” Terrarose Punsarelli told gq Last month.
Punsarelli points out that the revival of such drastic hairstyles also draws attention to a roster of athletes with whom viewers may not already be familiar. “It helps build a personal brand that extends beyond the game.”
That said, Yamal, Williams and Cucurella have already cemented their places in the football history books. Before the championship game, UNICEF Lionel Messi met a baby Yamal and his mother during a fundraising photoshoot, almost 20 years ago as the two were set to face off for the 2026 Championship title, the Ax revealed. Since that fateful linkup, the 19-year-old right winger has become one of the most influential football players in the world.
Cucurella made news during the final match when Argentina captain Lionel Messi made a desperate attempt to take the defender off after briefly striking his own mouth during a conversation on the field. Futile undertaking that left a bad taste in fans’ mouths.
And it was Williams’ headbutt that made possible Ferran Torres’ winning goal for the Spanish national team. Who are we to say whether his cold tactics played no part in that great assistance?
