The goalkeeper dropped it and Merino was there. Spain are in the semi-finals.

Thibaut Courtois bent to collect a routine ball in the 71st minute, stayed down, and the match was over. Not immediately (there were nineteen minutes and a substitution still to come) but the moment Belgium's first-choice goalkeeper clutched his thigh and looked toward the bench, everyone inside SoFi Stadium understood the shape of what was coming.

Senne Lammens came on. He had not played a minute of this World Cup before that moment. He made several good saves. In the 88th minute he got both hands to Pau Cubarsí's long-range effort and let it slip through, and Mikel Merino (on the pitch for 117 seconds) tapped the rebound into the roof of the net.

Spain 2–1 Belgium. Semi-finals. France on Tuesday in Dallas.

It was a match Spain dominated without ever making comfortable. Belgium created little but always threatened something. The final act was cruel and clean in equal measure, which is what knockout football at this level tends to produce.

Before a ball was kicked

The Belgian dressing room at SoFi Stadium had absorbed bad news an hour before kick-off. Youri Tielemans, the captain, the midfielder who had started every meaningful match of this tournament and scored twice in the comeback against Senegal, pulled a hamstring in the warmup. He did not take the field. Hans Vanaken replaced him.

Garcia recalled De Bruyne and Doku to the starting side after resting both against the United States, so Belgium lined up with genuine attacking quality despite losing their captain at the worst possible moment. But Tielemans does a specific and largely invisible job in the Belgian midfield — he manages the spaces between the lines, absorbs pressure, controls tempo when the opposition is building. Vanaken is an excellent footballer. Filling that function on an hour's notice in a World Cup quarterfinal is a different proposition from filling a name on a team sheet.

None of that fully explains the gap between the teams across 90 minutes, and Belgium's supporters would be wrong to use it as the primary explanation for what happened. Spain finished with 16 shots to Belgium's seven. The difference in quality between the two sides in the passages of the match when both were at full strength was real and would not have been reversed by a fit Tielemans. But the injury context belongs in the picture, and the Belgian people are entitled to put it there.

Ruiz, then De Ketelaere, then nothing until the end

Spain broke through in the 30th minute from the right corridor that has been their most consistent source of danger throughout this tournament. Lamine Yamal found Pedro Porro, Porro's low cross arrived at Dani Olmo, Courtois saved the first-time shot, and Fabián Ruiz was three centimetres ahead of the Belgian defence when the rebound dropped. He did not miss. It was Ruiz's first goal of the tournament and it vindicated de la Fuente's decision to start him ahead of Pedri, one of the more discussed selection calls in the Spanish camp this week.

Spain ought to have scored again before half-time. Yamal tested Courtois from a free kick in the 34th minute with a delivery that required a serious save. Then Belgium equalised, and the quality of the goal bore no relationship to the frequency of their chances. Castagne's cross from the right was precisely weighted and perfectly timed. De Ketelaere, arriving at the near post, provided the glancing header that Unai Simón could not reach. The finish was clean, unhurried and technically excellent. It ended Spain's 650-minute goalless streak at the World Cup, a sequence stretching back to the 2022 group stage in Qatar.

Belgium went to half-time level. Against the run of play, but level.

The second half was tighter and more contested than the first. Doku and De Bruyne combined in pockets of play that reminded the stadium they were watching a team of considerable quality, not simply one going through the motions of a capable but outclassed opponent. De Cuyper struck hard into the side netting in the 54th minute from a position where a cleaner contact would have given Simón a serious problem. Spain continued to press and Courtois continued to answer, making five saves in total before his body made the decision for him.

The goalkeeper, the substitute, and the finish that settled it

Garcia was clear about his decision to remove Courtois. The goalkeeper wanted to continue. Garcia judged that continuing risked turning a manageable thigh injury into a serious one, and with the match level and extra time available, he made the call that ended Belgium's tournament.

Lammens performed competently in the time available to him. He commanded his box, dealt with Spain's subsequent pressure, and gave Belgium no reason to suspect the ending that arrived in the 88th minute. Cubarsí struck from range — a speculative effort from a position where the shot was always hit with intent but rarely with expectation. Lammens got down to it. The ball slipped through.

Merino had walked off the bench in the 86th minute. He scored the winner against Portugal in the round of 16. He scored the winner here. His reaction was somewhere between disbelief and delight, the face of a man processing something that keeps happening to him without his full comprehension of why. "I've done this again," he said afterwards. "If you're ready and you try, it can happen for you." There is no more honest account of what it means to score twice in the final minutes of consecutive World Cup knockout matches.

Belgium pressed desperately in injury time. Lukaku, on as a substitute, led the pursuit with the kind of physical authority that has defined his career in these moments. Laporte met his best chance with an acrobatic volley clearance in the second minute of added time. The ball went wide. The whistle followed.

What comes next

Belgium's exit lands with particular weight because of the players it closes out. Courtois, De Bruyne, Lukaku — the generation that produced so much promise across the last decade without collecting the major title that the talent warranted — have likely played their last World Cup together. Garcia's contract expires at the end of this tournament. The transition that follows will be thorough.

Spain go to Dallas on Tuesday to face France with their unbeaten run now at 37 matches, equalling Italy's all-time international record. They are in a World Cup semi-final for the first time since they lifted the trophy in Johannesburg in 2010. They have Lamine Yamal, whose six appearances in this tournament are the most ever recorded by a player aged 18 or under at a World Cup. They have Merino coming off the bench. They have a defence that conceded nothing until the 41st minute of a quarterfinal against quality opposition.

Whether they have enough to beat France in Dallas on Tuesday is the most interesting question in world football right now.

De la Fuente called it a clash of giants. For once, it actually felt like it.

Spain 2 (Ruiz 30', Merino 88') defeated Belgium 1 (De Ketelaere 41'). SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, California. Friday 10 July 2026. Spain v France, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas. Tuesday 14 July 2026. 🏉