{"id":28074,"date":"2026-07-10T18:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/28074\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T18:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:39:11","slug":"why-isnt-pedri-starting-today-for-spain-vs-belgium-at-the-2026-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/28074\/","title":{"rendered":"Why isn’t Pedri starting today for Spain vs Belgium at the 2026 World Cup?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain confirmed their starting lineup to face Belgium in the 2026 World Cup<\/a> quarterfinals, and the big news surrounds a completely unexpected absence. Pedri will not start, a decision by Luis de la Fuente that has surprised the many fans attending the match<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The surprise is even greater because, in the buildup, many expected Dani Olmo to be sacrificed to bring Fabian Ruiz into the midfield. However, the Spanish head coach opted to keep the Barcelona player and leave out Pedri. Everything indicates it is a 100% tactical decision, as Pedri was not entering the match in his best form, for a fixture that already has referees confirmed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For his part, Fabian returns to the starting eleven, a position he had not held since the debut against Cape Verde, where Spain<\/a> drew 0-0 against Cape Verde. However, he is an experienced player who can give a different energy to the Spanish midfield.<\/p>\n

Spain chase World Cup semifinals<\/p>\n

La Roja face one of their biggest challenges in this 2026 World Cup. Belgium<\/a> arrive strengthened and with a great position in the FIFA ranking<\/a> after overcoming a tough elimination round and represent a maximum-demand opponent for the men led by Luis de la Fuente.<\/p>\n

\"Pedri\"<\/p>\n

Pedri of Spain<\/p>\n

For this reason, the head coach decided to introduce important modifications in search of controlling the tempo of the match and punching their ticket to the semifinals. He also left Gavi on the bench<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Confirmed lineups<\/p>\n

Lineups are already confirmed<\/a>. With the decision to bench Pedri<\/a> and Gavi and not include Nico Williams, Luis de la Fuente will line up as follows: Unai Simon; Pedro Porro, Pau Cubarsi, Aymeric Laporte, Marc Cucurella; Rodri, Fabian Ruiz, Alex Baena; Lamine Yamal, Dani Olmo, Mikel Oyarzabal.<\/p>\n

On Belgium\u2019s side, Romelu Lukaku will not start, nor will Dodi Lukebakio<\/a>, who had been a starter in the last match against USA. Rudi Garcia chose his starting eleven: Thibaut Courtois; Brandon Mechele, Maxim De Cuyper, Timothy Castagne, Nathan Ngoy; Kevin De Bruyne, Youri Tielemans, Nicolas Raskin; Leandro Trossard, Jeremy Doku, Charles De Ketelaere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain confirmed their starting lineup to face Belgium in the 2026 World Cup quarterfinals, and the big news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,13089,116],"class_list":["post-28074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-pedri","tag-spain"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116897144331922135","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}