{"id":48793,"date":"2026-07-01T21:29:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/48793\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T21:29:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:29:56","slug":"spain-vs-austria-preview-can-lamine-yamal-begin-to-shine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/48793\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain vs Austria preview: can Lamine Yamal begin to shine?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may not have been the easiest of starts to this summer’s World Cup following their shock 0-0 draw with Cape Verde, but Spain<\/a> have slowly looked to transform into the side that most people would expect to go far in the competition.<\/p>\n

Austria meanwhile certainly had a mixed bag of results during their time in Group J prior to the knockout stages, but just about clung on to second place in dramatic style, with a 96th minute equalizer courtesy of Sasa Kalajdzic sending the former third-place side through to the final 32.<\/p>\n

Team News<\/p>\n

Spain<\/p>\n

Spain and Athletic Club forward Nico Williams is expected to miss the next possible two weeks following the hamstring injury the 23-year-old experienced during the opening stages in their final group game against Uruguay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yeremi Pino of Crystal Palace is also set to miss this tie, following a collarbone injury that occurred in the same game prior to this.<\/p>\n

Austria<\/p>\n

As far as Austria are concerned, the ‘Wunderteam’ side may be missing the experienced defender David Alaba with a ‘physical discomfort’ affecting the Real Madrid man, though he is expected to make the starting lineup for the Austrians.<\/p>\n

The other end of the pitch may also seem injury-stricken, as the veteran striker Marko Arnautovic picked up a slight knock to his knee during the intense draw with Algeria.<\/p>\n

Aside from these possible injury doubts, Austria have no other confirmed concerns heading into this fixture.<\/p>\n

Lineup predictions<\/p>\n

Spain: Unai Simon, Marcos Llorente, Pau Cubarsi, Aymeric Laporte, Marc Cucurella, Mikel Merino, Rodri, Pedri, Lamine Yamal, Mikel Oyarzabal, Alex Baena.<\/p>\n

Austria: Alexander Schlager, Stefan Posch, Phillip Lienhart, David Alaba, Phillip Mwene, Nicolas Seiwald, Xaver Schlager, Konrad Laimer, Romano Schmid, Marcel Sabitzer, Marko Arnautovic.<\/p>\n

Time for Lamine Yamal to step up?<\/p>\n

Despite it being just his first World Cup, Lamine Yamal of Spain, the exciting eighteen-year-old, will be looking to step up for the 2010 champions in order for his nation to reach their 10th round-of-16 tie and subsequently knock out Austria in the process.<\/p>\n

Although the Barcelona superstar has only managed to strike once during the competition, against Saudi Arabia in the second group game, the main strength in the Spanish side has been how resilient their defence has been, with not a single goal conceded across their three previous games.<\/p>\n

It is fair to suggest that it has been a poor start for Lamine Yamal during this tournament, with just 25% of the shots attempted by the winger being directed on goal, considering how clinical his attacking returns were domestically, with 41 goal involvements across 45 games for Barcelona last season.<\/p>\n

As far as incentives go, Austria seem to have the opposite fortune when it comes to defensive displays, with the eastern European side having conceded eight in just their group-stage fixtures, and will certainly need to tighten up there to have any chance of making the last sixteen.<\/p>\n

One last chance for Marko Arnautovic<\/p>\n

Austria may not be flooded with the visual superstars that the likes of Spain possess, but experience in the likes of Marko Arnautovic could become pivotal for Austria to cause what would be a big upset by beating Spain for a final-16 spot.<\/p>\n

The former Stoke City and West Ham striker turned thirty-seven during April, and there now becomes a very increasing chance that this will be his last competitive tournament for his nation.<\/p>\n

Austria will certainly want to make the most of the forward’s presence, given his return of more than 45 goals across 136 appearances for his nation, and that experience of competing across several competitive tournaments could be pivotal when locking horns with the Spanish outfit.<\/p>\n

This is the first appearance that Austria have had in a World Cup in more than twenty years, as the European side were last seen at the 1998 edition of the games in France.<\/p>\n

Their dreams of reaching the knockout phase for that tournament were cut short however, as eventual quarter-finalists Italy knocked the side out in the dying minutes in a 2-1 result, crushing Austrian hearts in the process.<\/p>\n

History however is not always a negative aspect for Austria though, as on the only other occasion they have been matched up against the Spanish national side, they were on the winning side of a 2-1 victory, during the 1978 World Cup group stages in Argentina.<\/p>\n

Match information<\/p>\n

This encounter between Spain and Austria kicks off at the Los Angeles Stadium at 8PM UK time, and will be made available to watch on both BBC One and BBC iPlayer.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, live and up-to-date coverage can be found elsewhere on Vavel<\/a>, ensuring you do not miss any of the action between the two sides for a spot in the last 16 of this summer’s World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It may not have been the easiest of starts to this summer’s World Cup following their shock 0-0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11350,2266,2965,938,21601,5417,17,369],"class_list":["post-48793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-austria","tag-cape-verde","tag-david-alaba","tag-lamine-yamal","tag-marko-arnautovic","tag-nico-williams","tag-spain","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}