There has been little to separate Spain and Portugal in their recent meetings. <\/p>\n
Heading into this World Cup last-16 tie, six of their previous seven matches had ended in draws after 90 minutes.<\/p>\n
And for long periods in Dallas, it appeared extra time and penalties awaited – just like when the sides met in the Nations League final in June 2025, when Portugal won on penalties<\/a>. <\/p>\n In a goalless first half, it was Spain who produced the better chances, but Portugal went closest to breaking the deadlock through Mendes. <\/p>\n The second half was devoid of much quality but for the decisive moments as the game inched towards extra time. <\/p>\n The European champions caught the Portugal defence napping after Rodri earned them a free-kick and Torres slipped in Merino, who finished into the bottom left corner to begin Spanish celebrations in earnest. <\/p>\n But for Ronaldo – captain, leader and inspiration behind Portugal’s Euro 2016 triumph – this is the end of the road, at least on football’s grandest stage.<\/p>\n The five-time Champions League winner has said this would be his final World Cup<\/a> while, before last week’s last-32 game with Croatia in Toronto, Ronaldo’s sister stated this tournament would be his “last dance”., external<\/a><\/p>\n The Portugal captain tested Unai Simon – who has now gone 609 minutes without conceding at the World Cup – early in the 12th minute and almost poked in a knock back across the goal from his Al-Nassr team-mate Joao Felix in the 37th. <\/p>\n However, it was an underwhelming display from the forward, who stayed on the pitch until the final whistle but registered just 19 touches, with only three of them inside the box.<\/p>\n Spain’s 18-year-old Yamal was among those who consoled a crestfallen Ronaldo after the game in a moment that felt symbolic of football’s changing of the guard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There has been little to separate Spain and Portugal in their recent meetings. Heading into this World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-677438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}