Spain’s new young guard went head-to-head with Costa Rica’s aging core in the second Group E match of the day at the 2022 World Cup—and the newbies won out, convincingly.
Luis Enrique’s Spain side may be the third-youngest in Qatar, with only Ghana and the United States featuring younger average sides, but it jumped out to a 3–0 lead after half an hour in Qatar, and won 7–0 to jump out to first place in the group, with a supremely comfortable goal differential to boot. Coupled with Germany’s surprise defeat to Japan earlier in the day, things are off to quite a rosy start for La Furia Roja.
The likes of Barcelona’s Pedri, Gavi and Ansu Fati complement more veteran stars like Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and Álvaro Morata with hopes of bringing the Spanish back to glory. Ever since winning the World Cup in 2010, this competition has been tough for La Furia Roja. Entering Wednesday, they had won just two of their last seven World Cup games, going out in the group stage in 2014 and falling to host Russia in penalties in the last 16 four years ago. But their first steps in 2022 were quite encouraging.
Six players scored—Dani Olmo, Ferran Torres, Marco Asensio, Gavi, Carlos Soler and Alvaro Morata—in about as emphatic as an opening statement as there could be. If the goals didn’t tell the story, the possession and passing stats did. Spain had 81.3% possession, outpassing Costa Rica 976-165.
Costa Rica was hoping to replicate its magical 2014 run to the quarterfinals, with some of the key actors—namely goalkeeper Keylor Navas and forward Joel Campbell—still at the heart of what Los Ticos do. It’s a long way back from this, though, with the defeat and the size of it making it awfully difficult to see any realistic path to the last 16.
Spain announced its intent from the start. It had the better of the opening stages of the match, and it nearly paid off with a sensational goal in the fifth minute, Olmo taking a chance on a close range volley on a ball over the top from Pedri, only to push his chance wide of the far post.
Another close call came in the ninth minute, with Pedri finding Asensio just inside the Costa Rica box, only for the forward to slightly slip as he turned his low shot toward goal and push it just wide of the right post.
Spain and Olmo got their goal in the 11th minute, though. The RB Leipzig forward expertly took a ball down with the outside of his foot with his back to, spun and beat Navas from close range for the deserved lead.
The lead doubled 10 minutes later, with Jordi Alba crossing for Asensio. His first-time finish from the center of the box beat Navas and made it 2–0.
Ten minutes after that, it became 3-0. Jordi Alba was taken down in the Costa Rica box, gifting Spain a penalty, and Torres calmly stepped to the spot and caught Navas diving the wrong way, rolling in the third.
Asensio missed a chance late in the first half to make it 4–0, but no matter, it was as dominant of a half as there has been by any team thus far in Qatar. Spain had 85% of the possession and didn’t concede a single chance to the clearly overmatched Ticos.
The fourth came eight minutes into the second half. Torres had a defender and Navas on his back, kept possession, turned and scored from a right-sided angle to pile onto the rout.
Things calmed a bit as the result was well in hand, but not before Spain got its fifth with its best finish of the day. Gavi ran onto a cross at the top of the box, thumping a love volley off the outside of his right foot for the first World Cup goal of his career.
Soler came off the bench to become Spain’s fifth goalscorer on the day, pouncing on a rebound of a shot Navas had saved to fire home the sixth goal.
There was still time for more, though, with Morata getting in on the act during the eight minutes of stoppage time.
Spain will ride this momentum into its next match, against a vulnerable Germany, while Costa Rica will hope for a better outcome against Japan or else it risks having its time in Qatar effectively coming to an end after two games.
