\u201cNot even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what\u2019s happening right now, right?\u201d Merino said in Spanish. \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
How crazy? Merino has played less than 10 minutes in the past two games and has two goals. He\u2019s taken four shots in the World Cup and put two of them in the back of the net, the first in stoppage time to beat Portugal in the round of 16 and in the 88th minute Friday to beat Belgium in a quarterfinal and extend Spain\u2019s unbeaten to streak to 36 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really even know what to say. I still can\u2019t quite believe it,\u201d Merino said.<\/p>\n
Yet Spain\u2019s final substitution, which brought on Merino in the 86th minute, wasn\u2019t the only one that figured heavily in the result. Fifteen minutes earlier Belgian coach Rudi Garcia sent backup goalkeeper Senne Lammens on for Thibaut Courtois \u2014 not by choice, by necessity.<\/p>\n
The dropoff in talent wasn\u2019t great \u2014 Lammens started 32 times for Manchester United this season \u2014 but the difference in experience was. Courtois was playing in his 21st World Cup game, second-most all-time, and he had been brilliant up to then.<\/p>\n
But he tweaked a muscle making a save minutes earlier and dropped to the turf just before the second-half hydration break. After being attended to by the team\u2019s trainers, he tried to continue but couldn\u2019t, eventually hobbling to the sideline and collapsing on the bench in tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want his injury to get worse. That\u2019s why I subbed him off,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s part and parcel of high-level sport. You need to be concentrated, 100% focused, and need to be able to perform. I did not want to put players on the pitch who were not 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n
The margin between Belgium and Spain, after all, is a small one, even if the teams took completely different routes to the quarterfinal.<\/p>\n
Spain, which hadn\u2019t gone past the round of 16 in a World Cup since 2010 when it won its only title, had gone a record six games and 609 minutes without allowing a World Cup goal, dating to the group stage of the last tournament four years ago.<\/p>\n
![\"Spain](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783872573_92_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Spain midfielder Mikel Merino scores off a rebound in front of Belgium goalkeeper Senne Lammens during the second half of Spain\u2019s 2-1 quarterfinal win in the World Cup quarterfinals Friday at SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n
(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
You could binge watch two seasons of \u201cAbbott Elementary\u201d in that time.<\/p>\n
But if Spain, the reigning European champion, and goalkeeper Unai Sim\u00f3n were the immovable objects, Belgium, playing in the quarterfinals for the third time in four World Cups, was an unstoppable force. With 12 goals in the past three games, it entered the quarterfinals with the third-most goals in the tournament. And no team had taken more shots.<\/p>\n
Spain struck first, with Fabi\u00e1n Ruiz giving La Roja a 1-0 lead with his first goal of the tournament in the 30th minute. The sequence started with Pedro Porro sending a cross into the box for Dani Olmo, whose shot was parried away by Courtois. But Ruiz pounced on the rebound and deflected a shot off defender Timothy Castagne and into the back of the net.<\/p>\n
In any other game of this tournament, that would have been enough for Sim\u00f3n. But not against Belgium, which ended Spain\u2019s shutout streak in the 41st minute on a brilliant header from Charles De Keterlaere, who shielded Pau Cubars\u00ed with his body and one-hopped a Castagne cross past a flat-footed Sim\u00f3n for his third goal in two games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe record and the milestones are there,\u201d Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente said of his goalkeeper\u2019s record streak. \u201cIt\u2019s been decades since the last record was set. And perhaps somebody will break the clean-sheet record.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s going to be many, many years before that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Belgium opened the game up a bit when Garcia brought Romelu Lukaku, the country\u2019s all-time leading scorer, on at the hour mark. But Courtois was called to make two saves in the next three minutes and came up lame after the second.<\/p>\n
Shorty after he came off, De la Fuente summoned Merino over.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t say much to me,\u201d Merino said. \u201cHe told me I was coming in as the No. 10. And then, as the game was coming to an end, he told me I was incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the only two things he said to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first shot Lammens faced came moments later, when Cubars\u00ed put a one-hop shot on goal from distance. The keeper dove to his right to stop it with both hands, but the ball skipped just before it reached him and Lammens had trouble with the rebound, pushing it toward the edge of the six-yard box for Merino, who tapped it in.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, to beat a team of this caliber, you need luck on your side,\u201d Garcia, the Belgian coach, said. \u201cAnd the stars didn\u2019t align for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783872574_27_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
So while Belgium goes home, Spain goes to Texas for Tuesday\u2019s semifinal with France, the only team in the world ranked ahead of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEver since the World Cup started, everyone has been waiting for this match,\u201d Spanish wunderkind Lamine Yamal said. \u201cI\u2019ve been really looking forward to it. To me, they\u2019re the two best teams in the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone can take on France with confidence, it\u2019s us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Especially if Merino keeps dreaming.<\/p>\n
Sports editor Iliana Lim\u00f3n Romero contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Mikel Merino is sleeping, please don\u2019t wake him. If the last week has been a dream, he\u2019d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[61169,159089,149821,159091,23338,24418,423,2194,48,52,51,159090,47,50,49,5463,51143,35345,315,12967,159088],"class_list":["post-395718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-belgium","tag-charles-de-keterlaere","tag-courtois","tag-fabian-ruiz","tag-first-team","tag-france","tag-game","tag-goal","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lammens","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-minute","tag-simon","tag-spain","tag-time","tag-tournament","tag-world-cup-semifinal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}