{"id":49801,"date":"2026-07-03T12:15:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T12:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/49801\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T12:15:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T12:15:41","slug":"world-cup-fantasy-spain-impress-yamal-blanks-but-shines-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/49801\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup Fantasy: Spain impress, Yamal blanks but shines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain coasted into the Round of 16 with a comfortable win over Austria on Thursday.<\/p>\n

La Roja kept a fourth straight clean sheet en route to victory and now face Portugal in Dallas next Monday.<\/p>\n

Here are our Scout Notes from the game, featuring match stats from our\u00a0World Cup Toolkit page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SPAIN 3-0 AUSTRIAGoals:\u00a0Oyarzabal x2, PorroAssists:\u00a0Cucurella x2, BaenaShot on target bonus: Oyarzabal x2Tackle bonus: Rodri, Olmo, PedriTop points scorers:\u00a0Porro (16), Oyarzabal (14), Cucurella (13), Baena (8)TEAM STATS\"\"PLAYER STATS\"\"\"\"SCOUT NOTESWhile other Round of 32 \u2018favourites\u2019 struggled to live up to their tags, either bowing out like Germany or squeaking through like England, this was a relative walk in the park for Spain. They hadn\u2019t fully convinced from an attacking perspective in the group stage \u2013 even by their own manager\u2019s admission<\/a> \u2013 but this was much more like it. A 3-0 win did not flatter them.Indeed, the xG (2.83-0.32) was pretty close to the actual scoreline. La Roja had 23 shots to Austria\u2019s paltry five, and Unai Simon ($5.0m) didn\u2019t have a single save to make. A couple of decent headed chances were all Ralf Rangnick\u2019s side could really muster, with even their best move of the match, a free-flowing, one-touch attack, resulting in a shot that carried an xG of just 0.08. Austria did get into promising positions on umpteen occasions, it should be said, but a wayward final pass or a heavy touch broke down the move. Portugal will have more quality in the next round, and Spain know their easiest knockout fixture is now behind them.Still, it\u2019s a fourth successive clean sheet for Spain this summer. Only themselves and Mexico have yet to concede a single goal. Luis de la Fuente\u2019s side can back this up with a tournament-best expected goals against (xGA) tally, too:\"WorldDe la Fuente made two changes for this clash. As mentioned in our Dugout Discussion<\/a>, they were the exact reversals of the two alterations he made for the final group game against Uruguay:\u00a0the more attacking Dani Olmo\u00a0($7.7m) and Pedro Porro\u00a0($5.5m) came back in for Mikel Merino\u00a0($6.2m) and Marcos Llorente\u00a0($5.5m). Porro hauled here, nodding in Spain\u2019s second goal and creating five chances en route to a 16-point return but, as is the case with Olmo, you do wonder if his manager will proceed with more caution and once again switch the same players in the last 16. \u00c1lex Baena ($6.0m), who assisted Porro\u2019s header, may also be a minutes risk as the tournament progresses, with Nico Williams ($7.8m) due back in the next round \u2013 but you\u2019d fancy Baena to keep his place for now. The corner-taking Baena joined Porro on a game-high five key passes and hit the bar with a free-kick.As for players who are more secure, Marc Cucurella ($5.1m) shot to the top of the defenders\u2019 points table. He assisted Mikel Oyarzabal\u2018s ($8.1m) two goals, and was unlucky to see an early strike disallowed for a contentious foul. The stats will show just two key passes and no (legitimate) shots, but he picked up plenty of good positions, often inside of left-winger Baena.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith us, he\u2019s like clockwork, you could say. He\u2019s infallible. He always responds, always plays well, always does what he has to do, always interprets every game situation perfectly, both defensively and offensively. I think he\u2019s a top player, of an extremely high level.\u201d \u2013 Luis de la Fuente on Marc Cucurella, via Futbol Fantasy<\/a><\/p>\n

Oyarzabal himself is now on four goals for the tournament. It\u2019s feast or famine with him: two double-digit hauls, two blanks! He gets plenty of chances, at least, with another six attempts here taking him to 17 for the tournament. He\u2019d forced a fine save out of Alexander Schlager before opening his account, too. Given the number of chances that Portugal gave up against Croatia<\/a>, and the fact that Roberto Martinez\u2019s side have conceded nearly four times the xG as Spain, a clash with the Iberian neighbours might not be the worst fixture.Finally, Lamine Yamal ($10.0m). In a tournament when many of the big hitters are plundering points, this was another blank for him. However, this was probably the best we\u2019ve seen him at the World Cup so far. It was also the most we\u2019ve seen of him: an 85-minute run-out was his longest of the summer. After some early, fitness-influenced game-time management, Yamal nearly lasted the course. Had anything been riding on the final five minutes, he probably would have gone the distance. The teenage attacker was pretty unlucky to emerge without a goal, seeing a powerful close-range snap-shot repelled by Schlager and then a second-half effort cleared off the line. He tormented Konrad Laimer with his dribbling (and a handful of nutmegs), with only some tame shots spoiling what would have been superb solo goals. Plenty of encouragement, if no tangible returns.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain coasted into the Round of 16 with a comfortable win over Austria on Thursday. La Roja kept…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21827,20000,21828,17,21829,21830,1492],"class_list":["post-49801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-cucurella","tag-oyarzabal","tag-porro","tag-spain","tag-spain-austria","tag-spain-world-cup-fantasy","tag-yamal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49801","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=49801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}