{"id":52770,"date":"2026-07-09T22:06:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/52770\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T22:06:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:06:26","slug":"unbeaten-spain-meets-star-powered-belgium-in-world-cup-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/52770\/","title":{"rendered":"Unbeaten Spain meets star-powered Belgium in World Cup quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Spain hasn\u2019t lost and hasn\u2019t even conceded a single goal at this year\u2019s World Cup<\/a>. La Roja is unbeaten in 36 straight competitive matches since March 2023.<\/p>\n

This lofty standard of play clearly doesn\u2019t scare Belgium, which is on a surging trajectory of its own heading into the teams\u2019 World Cup quarterfinal match on Friday.<\/p>\n

While Spain has been Europe\u2019s most consistent winner for the past 3 1\/2 years, Belgium has played its way into position for what could be the final chance for its full golden generation of stars to do something spectacular together.<\/p>\n

The tantalizing clash at SoFi Stadium matches a pre-tournament favorite and the reigning European champions against Belgium, which has never quite reached its full potential despite the big-money stars across its roster. Yet goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois says Belgium realizes the opportunity it has after blowing out the co-host United States 4-1<\/a> on Monday in its best performance of the tournament and extending the Red Devils\u2019 own unbeaten streak to 18 matches across all competitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re one of the favorites to win it, so obviously we start as the underdog against them,\u201d said Courtois, who has been at Real Madrid since 2018. \u201cBut in football, everything is possible, and I believe that we can win, with all respect. But obviously they are the favorite.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Spain has struggled to score occasionally over the past month, its defense has remained perfect, with Rodri orchestrating the effort superbly from midfield. Goalkeeper Unai Sim\u00f3n has played a World Cup-record 609 consecutive minutes<\/a> without conceding, racking up another World Cup record of six straight clean sheets dating back to the 2022 tournament in Qatar.<\/p>\n

Sim\u00f3n has only had to make six saves in five World Cup matches, but Belgium has enough offensive talent to make any goalkeeper work \u2014 including Kevin De Bruyne, Youri Tielemans, veteran striker Romelu Lukaku, playmaker Leandro Trossard and Charles De Ketelaere, who had two goals against the Americans.<\/p>\n

Despite a wealth of good players around teenage sensation Lamine Yamal, Spain hasn\u2019t scored with as much flair as Belgium in this tournament, getting seven of its nine goals at the World Cup in two routs of overmatched Saudi Arabia and Austria. La Roja managed only Mikel Merino\u2019s clutch injury-time goal while beating Portugal 1-0<\/a> in the round of 16.<\/p>\n

But striker Mikel Oyarzabal scored two goals in Spain\u2019s first appearance at SoFi Stadium last week, leading Spain to a 3-0 rout of Austria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve managed to build a really solid core group,\u201d Oyarzabal said Thursday. \u201cRegardless of whether things go well or badly, or who\u2019s playing, the team responds, and I think that\u2019s crucial. We\u2019ve achieved something very difficult: creating that kind of unity within the national team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belgium has been to the World Cup quarterfinals more recently than Spain. The veteran Belgian stars were youngsters eight years ago when the Red Devils made the semifinals in Russia, while Spain hadn\u2019t won a knockout match since winning the World Cup in 2010.<\/p>\n

Injury concerns for Belgium and Spain<\/p>\n

Belgium lost midfielder Amadou Onana<\/a> to a knee injury this week, forcing a tactical change to preserve its defensive structure. That change might simply be the return of De Bruyne, who likely didn\u2019t play against the U.S. to keep him in top condition for Friday\u2019s match. Winger J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku is thought to be healthy now, but hasn\u2019t consistently played well at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Nico Williams is expected to be fit after being limited earlier in the World Cup, and Spain otherwise appears to be in good health.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See more of AP\u2019s World Cup coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Spain hasn\u2019t lost and hasn\u2019t even conceded a single goal at this year\u2019s World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22641,2881,22513,378,22642,3358,19995,9769,368,4690,9191,14716,19241,1743,17,6551,396,1496,5842,21626],"class_list":["post-52770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-amadou-mvom-onana","tag-belgium","tag-belgium-national-soccer-team","tag-california","tag-charles-de-ketelaere","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-kevin-de-bruyne","tag-leandro-trossard","tag-mikel-merino","tag-mikel-oyarzabal","tag-nicholas-williams","tag-rodrigo-hernandez","tag-romelu-lukaku","tag-soccer","tag-spain","tag-spain-national-soccer-team","tag-sports","tag-thibaut-courtois","tag-unai-simon","tag-youri-tielemans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52770","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=52770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}