Merino's stoppage-time header sends Spain past Belgium and into the World Cup semi-finals

Spain are into the World Cup semi-finals after Mikel Merino rose highest in the 86th minute to beat Belgium 1-0 in the last-eight meeting, the latest act in a tournament that has done more than most to puncture the football of perfect scripts. Merino, who six months ago was discharged from hospital on a mobility scooter following ankle surgery, climbed above the Belgian back line at the far post to meet a cross from the right and send the Spanish bench tumbling onto the touchline.

The goal settled a quarter-final that Belgium had tried, in stages, to drag into the kind of attritional dogfight their golden generation once specialised in. A Belgian side missing Thibaut Courtois, the Real Madrid goalkeeper whose pre-match injury was confirmed shortly before kick-off, kept their shape until the very last stretch, when Merino's head found the only patch of daylight the Spanish full-backs had spent 85 minutes trying to manufacture. Spain will now meet either France or Argentina in the semi-finals.

A tournament of late goals

This World Cup keeps finding Spain in the same place: the bench, the corridor, the last minutes. Merino's goal against Belgium was the latest in a string of late interventions that have defined La Roja's run. He had already scored the winner off the bench against Portugal in the previous round, a goal that bought Spain breathing room after a stressful finish in which the Portuguese had chased an equaliser. De la Fuente's side have learned to live with the kind of matches where 70 minutes of possession buys them little, and where the entire country ends up circling a corner flag waiting for someone to jump higher than the defender behind him.

That dependence on substitutes and second-half surges is not, on the evidence so far, a flaw the squad has paid for. It is, however, a pattern. Spain's expected-goals figures through the knock-out rounds have been modest; their conversion of late chances into tournament-altering moments has been anything but. The group-stage wins looked comfortable, but the games since the round of 16 have been a study in endurance, and De la Fuente has used his bench to settle each of them.

The Courtois question

Belgium's night began with a piece of news that, in retrospect, will define the post-mortem almost as much as Merino's header. Thibaut Courtois, long the team's most recognisable individual and the man around whom the back line reorganises itself, was ruled out shortly before kick-off. Reports carried on the night indicated a muscle issue; the precise diagnosis will not be confirmed until the Belgian Football Association publishes its update. His absence forced Domenico Tedesco into a reshuffle at the back, with the in-form goalkeeper replaced by a deputy whose distribution, under Spain's high press, was always going to be a soft point.

The question for Belgium is whether a single injury, however large, explains a quarter-final exit. The honest answer is that it does not, on its own. Belgium played the kind of disciplined, compact match that has long been their identity in tournament football: a low block, two disciplined banks of four, and an invitation to Spain to break them down the hard way. The back five, with the second-choice goalkeeper behind them, absorbed almost everything for 85 minutes. What it did not produce, however, was a single clear chance from open play in the final third. Belgium's golden generation has been replaced by a younger and less heralded squad, but the structural habit of caution in knockout football endures.

Merino's second act

The wider story of the night sits with Merino himself. Six months ago the Arsenal midfielder left hospital on a mobility scooter after surgery on a recurring ankle issue that had threatened his tournament before it had begun. His rehabilitation was slow, his minutes at club level carefully managed, and his path back into the Spanish starting XI blocked by the form of Pedri and Rodri. He arrived at this World Cup as a squad player and has, almost by accumulation, become the figure Spain's knock-out story keeps returning to: the substitute who scores, the jumper who finds a yard when the cross comes in.

There is a wider point buried in his two goals. Spain, for all their technical polish, have struggled to find a consistent number nine at this tournament. Merino is, nominally, a central midfielder; his goals have come from attacking the back post with the timing of a forward. That a midfielder has had to assume the role of the decisive header in two consecutive rounds is, on the one hand, a tribute to his movement and, on the other, a quiet indictment of Spain's failure to land cleanly on a centre-forward through 90 minutes.

What Spain still have to prove

The semi-final will tell us more about this Spanish side than either of the last two rounds. Belgium and Portugal were both, for different reasons, beatable opponents who played into Spain's late-game strengths: a deep block, a team willing to sit on a lead or chase a deficit, and a tournament situation in which one goal was always likely to be enough. The next opponent will be deeper, faster, and considerably less accommodating.

For all the romance of Merino's header and the symbolism of the bench-to-hero arc, the structural problem remains. Spain are creating enough to win, but not enough to dominate. They have not yet faced a side willing to play the match on equal terms for ninety minutes. If Argentina or France decide that, the late-goal lifeline starts to look less like a feature and more like a habit with an expiry date.

The date to circle is the semi-final, kick-off at a venue and time to be confirmed by FIFA. Spain will travel. Merino will, presumably, travel with them. Whether he travels as the central figure of the story or the supporting cast will tell us everything about how far this team can actually go.

Desk note: Monexus framed this as a Spanish story with Belgian counter-evidence, rather than the reverse, on the grounds that the decisive act was Merino's and the night's structural information sat with the Spanish bench. The Courtois injury is treated as one input among several, not as the explanatory frame the Belgian post-mortems will inevitably reach for.