The individual awards at a World Cup usually go to whoever scored the most memorable goals. This one went, in the main, to the players who stopped things happening.

Rodri, Golden Ball

The Manchester City midfielder won the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player, an award that has historically favored attackers and, on several occasions, gone to a player on the losing finalist.

Rodri's case rested on control rather than production. Spain's method through the tournament was to hold the ball, deny opponents rhythm and win matches by narrow margins, and the holding midfielder is the position where that method either functions or collapses. Voters have not often rewarded it. They did here.

Unai Simón, Golden Glove

Spain's goalkeeper took the Golden Glove having conceded a single goal across eight matches.

That figure describes a defense more than a goalkeeper, which is the usual difficulty with the award. It is nonetheless a remarkable number for a tournament of this length, and it is the clearest single statistic explaining how Spain won.

Pau Cubarsí, Young Player

The Best Young Player award went to Cubarsí, the Barcelona center back, who was a fixture in the Spanish defense throughout.

There is something telling in a 19-year-old defender taking the young player prize in a tournament that also featured Lamine Yamal, his contemporary and a considerably more spectacular footballer. Spain's youth pipeline has produced both, and this month the defender was the one who did not have an off day.

Kylian Mbappé, Golden Boot

The exception to the Spanish sweep is the award most people notice. Mbappé won the Golden Boot with 10 goals for France, edging Lionel Messi, and became the first player to win the scoring award at consecutive men's World Cups.

France finished fourth. That combination, the tournament's most prolific scorer on a team that lost twice in the closing week, is a reasonably efficient summary of why the other three awards went where they did.

The pattern

Spain won the World Cup with one goal in the final and one goal conceded across the entire tournament. A team assembled that way tends to produce award winners who are hard to make a highlight reel from.

Whether the voting reflects a genuine shift in how the sport evaluates players, or simply follows the champion as it usually does, will be clearer in four years than it is tonight.