Spain beat Portugal 1-0 on a stoppage-time strike from substitute Mikel Merino, ending Cristiano Ronaldo's World Cup on the same low note Portugal spent 90 minutes trying to avoid.
Bush’s PicksPicks madeJul 5, 11:23 PM CT
+182POR✓ESP-190
-104POR +0.5✓ESP -0.5+102
-120Over 2.5✗Under 2.5+120
Best BetSpain to win✓
Postgame
The miss here is obvious: we bet the over expecting two dangerous attacks to trade chances, and instead watched a cagey, defensive knockout game produce exactly 1 goal in 90-plus minutes, the under cashed, not us. Give the rest of the card its due though, the Spain moneyline call and the spread both hit, with the midfield control we flagged as the deciding factor showing up right on schedule even if the scoreline stayed nervy until stoppage time.
Pregame
The market has Spain as the clear side to get through this tie, and it is not hard to see why given how this midfield can suffocate a game for 90 minutes even with two attackers unavailable. Portugal's path to advancing runs through stealing individual moments rather than sustained control, which is a real but low-probability route against a team this comfortable holding the ball. Back Spain to get through, knowing full well Ronaldo needs only one swing of the boot to turn the final 20 minutes into a nervy watch.
Portugal
+Ronaldo remains one moment from deciding it
+Leao and Bruno Fernandes give real quality
−Needed stoppage time just to escape Croatia
−Spain's midfield trio can control every phase
Spain
+Rodri-Pedri engine dictates tempo for long stretches
+Oyarzabal finishing at a career-high level
−Nico Williams and Yeremy Pino both unavailable
−One Ronaldo moment can undo a lead
Portugal spent the night doing what they do best: sit compact, funnel everything through Ronaldo, and dare Spain to find a crack. Diogo Costa held up his end, and Nuno Mendes even rattled the crossbar in the first half before a knee injury forced him off. But Spain never stopped probing, and when Rodri and Pedri finally wore the door down, it was the guys off the bench who kicked it in. Ferran Torres slipped a ball into the box in the first minute of stoppage time and Mikel Merino finished at the near post. Ronaldo never got his moment. Unai Simon made sure of that at the other end, and that was the game.
Spain4-2-3-1
Portugal4-2-3-1
Starting 11s.
Both managers picked exactly the XIs you'd expect. Portugal built around a compact back four shielding Vitinha and Joao Neves, feeding Joao Felix, Bruno Fernandes and Pedro Neto ahead of Ronaldo up top. Spain mirrored the double pivot with Rodri and Pedri, then trusted Alex Baena, Dani Olmo and Lamine Yamal to create around Mikel Oyarzabal, with Nico Williams and Yeremy Pino both out and not even part of the equation. Didn't matter. The subs decided this one anyway.
Show fees
FT
Spread
Advance
Total
Portugal(2-2-1)
0
+0.5
-104
+182
o2.5
-120
Spain(4-1-0)
1
-0.5
+102
-190
u2.5
+120
In-Game
Whale Buys
Advance includes extra time & pens; spread + total settle on 90 minutes.
The market had the shape of this right before kickoff, pricing Spain as a near coin flip to win it outright in the 90 and a clear favorite to advance either way. That's roughly how it played out, just messier and later than the price implied. Spain never ran away with anything. They ground it out for 90-plus minutes before a stoppage-time strike settled a game that felt like a stalemate right up until it wasn't.
Our card split the way these things do. The moneyline call on Spain to advance was straightforward, the Rodri-Pedri control we flagged held up for the full 90, and the Ronaldo moment we warned about never showed. The spread pick, Spain winning it outright rather than needing extra time or penalties, cashed too, even if 'clean and controlled' wasn't quite the vibe watching Portugal make them sweat until the 91st minute. The total is where we got it wrong. We took the over expecting two attacking-minded sides to trade chances, and instead got a defensive standoff decided by one moment, well under the 2.5 line we set.
Portugal
(2-2-1)
Jul 6LvsSpain0-1
Jul 2WvsCroatia2-1
Jun 27DvsColombia0-0
Jun 23WvsUzbekistan5-0
Jun 17DvsDR Congo1-1
Spain
(4-1-0)
Jul 6WvsPortugal1-0
Jul 2WvsAustria3-0
Jun 26WvsUruguay1-0
Jun 21WvsSaudi Arabia4-0
Jun 15DvsCape Verde0-0
Recent form.
That's the honest tally: 2 of 3 correct, and the one we missed was the one that assumed this game would open up instead of staying knotted until stoppage time, a cagey, low-event knockout match that was exactly the script our own bear case warned about. Portugal's tournament ends here, likely closing the book on Ronaldo's World Cup career for good. Spain moves on to face the winner of USMNT-Belgium in the quarterfinals, and their title price jumped to a shade under 18% on the back of it, a real number for a team that just leaned on its bench to escape a knockout game.
Spain0-1
Croatia2-1
Colombia0-0
Uzbekistan5-0
DR Congo1-1
Austria3-0
Uruguay1-0
Saudi Arabia4-0
Cape Verde0-0