For Spain, one run ends while another continues

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The streak is over for Spain.

Not the World Cup run. The clean sheet run.

Finally, someone managed to put one past Unai Simon, La Roja’s fine goalkeeper. But it was going to take more than Charles De Keelaere’s header goal to stop the Spaniards Friday at SoFi Stadium. And in the end, Belgium didn’t have that extra push required to stay alive in this World cup.

Instead, it will be Spain vs. France in the semifinals on Tuesday in  Arlington, Texas, a matchup that figures to yield more than one goal, assuming Kylian Mbappe’s ankle is well enough for him to trot out on to the pitch (He’ll be ready).

Spain prevailed 2-1 in a tight, defensive battle in SoFi’s final hosting of this World Cup. It’s what you would expect with the stakes being as high as they were.

But it took two defining moments for the Spaniards to continue on. The first came in the 88th minute when Mikel Merino scored in the 88th minute against Belgium substitute goalkeeper Senne Lammens after starter Thibaut Courtois left the game in the 72nd minute after sustaining a thigh injury and could not continue following the second of two hydration breaks.

Merino had just come on a couple of minutes prior to his heroics, justifying the decision by Spain coach Luis de la Fuente to bring him on. He had done the same thing to Portugal in the Round of 16.

The other moment came in the 92nd minute as Belgium was pressing and looked like it was ready to tie the game. With Simon out of position, the ball was headed goalward only to have Spain defender Aymeric Laporte block the ball with his leg and having it wind up in the hands of his goalkeeper.

The old adage better to be lucky than good worked in this instance for Spain. Belgium coach Rudi Garcia admitted as much afterward as he praised the Spaniards but lamented his own side’s unluckiness. He perhaps saw a sign before the opening kickoff that this might not be his side’s day as he had to go without his captain as Youri Tielemans was injured in warmups and could not play.

Still, the fact that Belgium managed to do what no one else could do, which is score a goal against Spain, should be duly noted. And while goals should be hard to come by in this kind of setting, what Simon and his mates had accomplished going into the quarterfinals was pretty remarkable. No goals allowed in five-plus games? A run of 650 scoreless minutes?

It’s one thing to blank Saudi Arabia. It’s quite another to deny Ronaldo and Portugal. That takes some work.

Spain’s ability to track runners, win midfield battles and close out space in its defensive half makes it hard to dent the scoreboard against. Friday, it took a breakdown and a nice setup by Timothy Castagne to find De Keelaere for Belgium to deliver and end the goal-less run against Spain in the 41st minute.

La Roja had already set a World Cup standard with five straight shutouts. The record for fewest goals against for the entire tournament is two, held by France in 1998, Italy in 2006 and Spain in 2010. And those tournaments featured 32 teams, not 48 as its the case in 2026.

“That may be a record that stands for a long time,” de la Fuente said. “We have a great goalkeeper in Simon. But the players in front of him were responsible as well for the success with how hard they defended.”

So what the Spanish have achieved going into Friday was pretty heady stuff. But the bigger picture is about holding the trophy in New Jersey a week from Sunday and as long as Spain continues to defend and get enough offense of its own, it might be the ones accepting the trophy from President Donald Trump.

And how ironic would that be given the tiff between Trump and Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s Prime Minster. Trump is threatening to cut off trade with Spain because it refuses to back the U.S. in its war with Iran. Sanchez stood firm in his country’s position and essentially told Trump off and go take a hike.  

Yeah, nothing like a little political theater to spice up the world’s biggest sporting event.

So it’s game on in Texas — Spain, which has now won 36 straight international matches, vs. Mbappe and France for the right to play in Jersey for the World Cup trophy next Sunday.

“It will be a clash of giants,”  de la Fuente said.

And maybe more goals too.