Spain into the semis on Merino's late blow — and the route through Belgium tells a quieter story

Mikel Merino struck in the 88th minute at [date 2026-07-10T20:00Z, per France 24] to send Spain past Belgium and into the World Cup 2026 semi-finals, finishing a 2-1 win that had spent most of the night looking like it would slip away. Fabian Ruiz had opened the scoring before Belgium pegged Spain back and spent long stretches of the second half pressing for a winner of their own. The header — finished at the far post with the clock running down — was the kind of moment that turns a quarter-final from a test of nerve into a referendum on who deserved to progress. Spain did. Belgium did not.

The result is the headline. The texture of the match is the story: a Spanish side that looked short of its usual control for large stretches, a Belgian team that played with the urgency of a generation trying to prove it is more than a chapter-ending footnote, and a single moment of execution that rewarded the side which had refused to settle for extra time. Spain's path through the tournament now runs through one of the two remaining quarter-final winners — and whoever emerges from the other side of the bracket. Belgium's tournament is over, and with it, in all likelihood, the last major tournament of a golden cohort that has been running out of tomorrows since the 2022 World Cup.

The night Spain did not have

For about seventy minutes, this was not the Spain most observers expected to see. France 24's match report describes a side that had to absorb pressure after Ruiz's opener and never fully settled into the possession-dominant register the squad is built for. Belgium equalised, then tilted the field. Spain were reduced to absorbing pressure and waiting for a chance that, for long stretches, did not look like arriving.

The temptation after a late winner is to retroactively read the whole match as controlled. It was not. Spain were second-best for meaningful periods, and the structure of their performance — sparse possession, defensive blocks, transitions rather than sustained build-up — looks more like a problem to solve in the next round than a template to repeat. Luis de la Fuente's side has now won three knockout games in this tournament by a single goal. That is a record of survival, not domination, and it sharpens the questions about whether the midfield axis can sustain longer spells against the side that wins the other half of the bracket.

What Belgium still is — and what it is becoming

Belgium's exit closes a chapter the country's football has been trying to write the final line of since their bronze medal at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The core of the squad that reached the 2018 semi-final and finished third four years later is now scattered across the late stages of club careers, and several of the names who defined that run — Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne among them — have spent the years since 2022 either retired, injured, or visibly diminished. The team that took the field on Friday played with energy and with the structural clarity the Belgian federation has spent the post-2018 years trying to institutionalise, but the talent gap to a fully fit Spain was real even when the scoreline was level.

Domenico Tedesco's task now is a familiar one for the post-golden-generation national coach: turn a competitive, well-organised side into one capable of winning a knockout round against a top-six opponent. Belgium have not won a knockout match at a World Cup since that 2018 run ended. The gap is not tactical, exactly — it is the gap between a generation that over-performed its expected output for half a decade and the next one, which has to learn what it actually is without the cover of stars.

A tournament of late goals

The pattern of this World Cup has been the late goal. Spain's winner was the latest in a run of knockout matches in this tournament that have been decided in the final quarter-hour, a tempo that suits sides with depth on the bench and unsettles those trying to close games out. France 24's reporting flags the timing of Merino's strike — the 88th minute — and the broader picture across the rounds in the United States, Canada and Mexico has been similar: tight matches, late swings, and substitutes deciding ties that starters could not.

For Spain, that has been a comfort and a warning. Comfort because Merino, on as a substitute, was the match-winner. Warning because the side being relied upon to provide the late interventions is the bench, not the established XI — and benches shrink in semi-finals, where the margin between two strong sides is too thin for depth alone to paper over. Whoever Spain face next will have watched the Belgium film and seen a Spain team that can be pressed, that can be hurried, and that can be made to look ordinary for twenty-minute spells. The next opponent will try to extend those spells.

What the semi-final actually asks

The shape of the question for Spain on [next fixture date pending quarter-final conclusion] is whether a side that has now won three single-goal knockout games can absorb a stronger opponent than Belgium for longer without conceding first. The shape of the question for the tournament is whether the late-goal pattern holds into the last four, or whether the bracket eventually produces the kind of match one side wins comfortably and the other cannot answer.

For Belgium, the route forward is the route they have been walking since 2022: a controlled handover from a generation that won nothing but changed how the country thought of itself at this level, to a generation that has to win something to justify the federation's patience with the project. Spain's Merino header bought De la Fuente another week. It bought Belgium's rebuild another four years of questions it cannot yet answer.

Desk note: Monexus framed this as a Spain story that happens to have Belgium inside it — the late winner is the news peg, but the structural question is what a Spanish side that has now won three knockout games by one goal looks like in a semi-final, and what Belgium's exit tells us about the end of a generation the Belgian federation has been trying to replace since 2018.

Wire provenance

This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:

• https://t.me/s/france24_en