The striker nobody is talking about
Lamine Yamal has soaked up nearly every headline on Spain's march to the final. Mikel Oyarzabal has quietly gone about the scoring.
The Real Sociedad forward arrives at MetLife Stadium as Spain's top scorer at the tournament with five goals, and he did it without much fuss. No viral clips, no breathless build-up. Just goals, at the right moments, in the games that mattered.
Spain face Argentina on Sunday, kick-off 3pm ET (8pm in the UK, 9pm across central Europe), with Luis de la Fuente's side chasing a first World Cup since 2010. Yamal, at 19, would become the youngest world champion of the modern era if they win. But it is Oyarzabal, at the sharp end, who has done the finishing.
Five goals, and the one that sank France
Those five goals put Oyarzabal in serious company. He now matches the best return by any Spain player at a single World Cup, level with Emilio Butragueno in 1986 and David Villa in 2010, per Infobae. Villa, remember, was the last man to score Spain to a world title.
The pick of the five came from twelve yards. Oyarzabal buried the penalty that saw off France 2-0 in the semi-final, the goal that carried Spain to their first final in sixteen years. It was ice-cold under pressure, and nobody in the Spain camp will have been surprised. This is the same forward who struck the winner in the Euro 2024 final. Big games, big moments: it has become his habit.
Infobae rate him among Spain's most prolific ever, sixth on the country's all-time list. For a player so rarely mentioned in dispatches this fortnight, that is quite a footnote.
He is not the man who keeps opponents up at night. Yamal is that, and Dani Olmo pulls the strings behind him. But Argentina's defence, drilled by Lionel Scaloni, cannot afford to lose sight of Spain's top scorer. Strikers who go quiet tend to punish you the moment you forget them.
What to expect at MetLife
Argentina arrive as the holders, unbeaten through the knockouts and dragged to the final by Lionel Messi, who at 39 is playing what is widely expected to be his last World Cup. They beat England 2-1 in their semi. Messi is chasing history of his own: no captain has defended the trophy since Cafu in 2002, and no man has led back-to-back winners since Pele.
The numbers, though, favour Spain. Opta's supercomputer makes them roughly 59 percent to Argentina's 41, and the smart money leans the same way. La Roja have been the tournament's most complete side.
Oyarzabal will not top the Golden Boot race either. That is a two-man scrap between Kylian Mbappe, out in front on 10, and Messi, second on 8 with four assists, who needs at least a couple tonight to overtake him. Oyarzabal's five keep him well in the conversation as Spain's own leading man.
If it stays tight, and finals so often do, the decisive touch may not come from the teenager everyone came to watch. It might come from the one they forgot. Kick-off is at 3pm ET, and Fox carries it in the United States, with BBC One and ITV1 both showing it in the UK.
Sources
- ESPN
- BBC Sport
- Opta Analyst
- Infobae
- Cover photo: Rolandhino1 / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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