<\/p>\n
Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal (21) celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal during the World Cup round of 32 soccer match between Spain and Austria in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, July 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jae C. Hong\/AP Photo\/Jae C. Hong<\/p>\n
Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal during the World Cup round of 32 soccer match between Spain and Austria in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, July 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jae C. Hong\/AP Photo\/Jae C. Hong<\/p>\n
Spain’s Pedro Porro (12) celebrates scoring his side’s 2nd goal with Alex Baena during the World Cup round of 32 soccer match between Spain and Austria in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, July 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Marcio J. Sanchez\/AP Photo\/Marcio J. Sanchez<\/p>\n
Austria’s Michael Gregoritsch (11) and Spain’s Pau Cubarsi go for a header during the World Cup round of 32 soccer match in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, July 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Mark J. Terrill\/AP Photo\/Mark J. Terrill<\/p>\n
Spain’s Alex Baena (15) challenges for the ball against Austria’s Stefan Posch (5) during the World Cup round of 32 soccer match between Spain and Austria in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Thursday, July 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jae C. Hong\/AP Photo\/Jae C. Hong<\/p>\n
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Mikel Oyarzabal scored two goals and Spain beat Austria 3-0 on Thursday for its first World Cup victory in a knockout match since winning the title in 2010.<\/p>\n
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Pedro Porro added a goal in the second half for Spain, which put on its most impressive performance of the tournament while dominating possession and demonstrating the offensive creativity across its vaunted lineup.<\/p>\n
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Spain also has yet to allow a goal at this year’s World Cup. Unai Sim\u00f3n didn’t have to make a save while keeping his fourth consecutive clean sheet, since Austria failed to get a shot on target.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy to have helped the team for us to go through another round,\u201d Oyarzabal said. \u201cNow just rest and get ready for the next one. It was a complicated match. We knew that it was going to be difficult against a very physical team, but we had a very good day and played a good match.\u201d<\/p>\n
La Roja will next face the winner of Portugal\u2019s match against Croatia in Dallas on Monday in the round of 16.<\/p>\n
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Lamine Yamal had four of Spain\u2019s 10 shots on goal while getting wild cheers from the pro-Spanish sellout crowd at SoFi Stadium. The 18-year-old Barcelona sensation played his longest stretch of the tournament before coming off in the 85th minute, moments after Austria defender David Alaba deflected Yamal\u2019s hard shot off the goal line.<\/p>\n
Spain got its marquee offense from Oyarzabal, the Real Sociedad captain who doubled his goal total at this year’s World Cup by opening the scoring in the 36th minute and clinching the victory in the 89th. Marc Cucurella had assists on both of Oyarzabal’s goals, demonstrating an excellent connection from the left side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe great teams step up when it\u2019s needed,\u201d Spain coach Luis De La Fuente said. \u201cWe played a great match. We came close to perfection, but we must keep improving. There is always room for improvement, because every upcoming match will be very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Goalkeeper Alexander Schlager made six saves in an outstanding performance for Austria, which reached the knockout rounds of its first World Cup since 1998 by squeaking out a late draw with an injury-time goal against Algeria. Coach Ralf Rangnick\u2019s team hasn\u2019t won a knockout match at the World Cup since 1954.<\/p>\n
After an unbeaten group stage that still didn\u2019t quiet the questions about this star-laden team\u2019s championship potential, Spain is firmly back in World Cup contention for the first time since winning it all in South Africa 16 years ago. Spain lost two knockout matches and got eliminated in the group stage over the past three World Cups.<\/p>\n
Spain is now unbeaten 35 straight competitive matches since March 2023. La Roja won the 2023 Nations League and the 2024 European Championship in that stretch, but also lost the 2025 Nations League final on penalties to Portugal.<\/p>\n
Following a cautious start against Austria, Spain unleashed its full attack after the first-half hydration break. Three minutes after Schlager made a diving fingertip save on Oyarzabal\u2019s low shot, the Spain player came unmarked in the penalty area and banged home a pass from Cucurella for his third goal of the World Cup.<\/p>\n
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\u00c1lex Baena put a beautiful 25-yard free kick off the crossbar in stoppage time, and Schlager saved the resulting point-blank chance from Yamal.<\/p>\n
Spain kept up its pressure after halftime, playing some of its most creative soccer of the tournament. It was rewarded when Baena broke in on the left side and lifted a pass to an unmarked Porro, who banged home an emphatic header for his first international goal.<\/p>\n
Oyarzabal wrapped it up by converting another sharp pass from Cucurella.<\/p>\n
Sim\u00f3n has only had to make four saves in his four straight shutout victories.<\/p>\n
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See more of AP\u2019s World Cup coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal (21) celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal during the World Cup round of 32…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21701,9154,21597,2965,4888,7980,4690,1561,1562,7842,1558,1560,1559,21615,6854,4741,21630,17,21743,5842],"class_list":["post-49470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-alexander-schlager","tag-croatia","tag-dallas","tag-david-alaba","tag-luis-de-la-fuente","tag-marc-cucurella","tag-mikel-oyarzabal","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-pedro-porro","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32554-ap-online-soccer-game-stories","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-product-42059-world-cup-text","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-ralf-rangnick","tag-spain","tag-spain-austria-score-world-cup","tag-unai-simon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49470","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=49470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}