Mikel Merino is making a habit of this. On as a substitute for barely two minutes, he bundled home an 88th-minute winner as Spain beat Belgium 2-1 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, booking their place in the World Cup semi-finals. For the second knockout round running, a goal from the bench settled everything, and once again Merino was the man who delivered it.
For an hour Spain looked in command. They were not, in the end, anything like comfortable.
Ruiz strikes, then Belgium bite back
Fabian Ruiz gave Spain the lead in the 30th minute, a clean, unfussy finish of the kind that had carried them this far. For a while it felt routine, another controlled evening for a side that had barely put a foot wrong all tournament.
Then Belgium did something no team had managed all summer. Charles De Ketelaere climbed to meet a Timothy Castagne cross and headed home before the interval, and a remarkable record went with it. The equaliser ended Unai Simon's World Cup shutout streak at 650 minutes, a run stretching all the way back to Qatar 2022, and closed the book on Spain's six straight clean sheets in 2026. Belgium, per AP, were the first side to score on them at this tournament.
That streak had been one of the summer's quiet stories: six matches, no goals conceded, a defence that looked shut for good. De Ketelaere's header reopened it in an instant. Honours were even at the break, and the second half carried a different charge.
The equaliser changed the temperature. Spain kept the ball, as they always do, but Belgium had found belief, and for a spell it was they who looked the likelier to score.
Courtois goes off, and the game turns
The cruellest twist came in the 71st minute. Thibaut Courtois, who had kept Belgium in the tie, pulled up with an apparent quadriceps problem and could not continue. Until that moment he had been Belgium's best player, a wall between the posts on a night when Spain kept coming. He left the pitch visibly emotional, replaced by Senne Lammens.
That change would decide it. With two minutes of normal time remaining, Pau Cubarsi's shot squirmed through Lammens, and there was Merino, only just introduced, to steer the loose ball over the line. Cruel on the young keeper. Ruthless from Spain.
For Merino it was a second consecutive knockout winner off the bench, after his late strike had seen off Portugal in the last 16. Two knockout rounds, two winners, both arriving when the game seemed set for extra time. Some players save their best for the grandest nights. He appears to save his for the final ten minutes.
France await in Dallas
Spain march on, unbeaten in 35 matches since March 2024 and never truly stretched until Belgium landed their blow. That run now carries them into the tournament's first semi-final, against France on Tuesday 14 July at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, near Dallas.
It is the tie the tournament wanted, two of the summer's standout sides meeting earlier than the bracket might have promised. Spain arrive with momentum, a settled side, and a substitute who keeps writing the endings. They arrive with a warning too. For six matches nobody had laid a glove on them. Belgium found the crack inside 45 minutes.
The open question is whether Spain can hold their nerve when the margins are this fine. France, on this evidence, will fancy their chances of prising that crack wider still.
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