SPAIN won a knockout match at the men’s World Cup for the first time in 16 years as they cruised past Austria in Los Angeles to reach the last 16.
After 36 minutes of gradually increasing pressure, Spain finally took the lead when Marc Cucurella’s low cross was swept home from 12 yards by Mikel Oyarzabal.
They deservedly doubled their lead in the 66th minute when patient build-up ended in right-back Pedro Porro charging into the box to head home Alex Baena’s cross.
And a crushing victory was sealed as Cucurella and Oyarzabal combined again with a minute remaining. The new Real Madrid left-back played a perfect through-ball for the striker to slide home his fourth goal of the tournament.
Having been frustrated for the opening half an hour of the last-32 tie, Spain thought they had the lead when Cucurella smashed home a half-cleared corner – but it was disallowed as Pau Cubarsi was harshly judged to have fouled Austria keeper Alexander Schlager.
Schlager’s heroics prevented Spain from being out of sight by half-time, denying Oyarzabal with a fine low save to his left, shortly before the European champions took the lead.
He then made a brilliant double save, tipping Baena’s free-kick on to the crossbar before blocking Lamine Yamal’s fierce follow-up with his chest.
However, Spain continued to dominate after the restart to run out comfortable winners.
Austria, playing their first World Cup knockout fixture since 1954, came close when substitute Sasa Kalajdzic headed over with his first touch.
But they rarely threatened further, meaning Spain join Mexico in not conceding a goal in their first four 2026 World Cup matches.
While Spain have been widely tipped as one of the World Cup favourites thanks to their raft of talent and impressive Euro 2024 triumph, they needed to put to bed a remarkably poor recent record.
Since winning the 2010 final, they had failed to win a World Cup knockout match – a group-stage exit in 2014 was then followed by defeat on penalties to Russia in 2018 and Morocco in 2022 in the last 16.
However, there was little risk of another early exit as they patiently broke down an Austria side who played much more conservatively than in the group stage to little avail.
Lamine Yamal has not posted the goal or assist numbers that many of his world-class peers have done during this tournament, but showed his quality throughout by tormenting makeshift Austrian left-back Konrad Laimer.
The 18-year-old was denied what would have been a deserved goal late on, when David Alaba blocked his effort on the line.
But after only having 16 shots on target in their three group games – the 15th-most of any team – Spain fired in 10 here to show their threat and are clearly warming to this World Cup at just the right time.