The 2026 FIFA World Cup has reached its business end, with the Round of 16 beginning. With so much happening every day, ESPN India attempts to pick out the one magical moment that defined the day's action.
For Day 25, we pick Mikel Merino's injury-time winner for Spain against Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal.
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Mikel Merino took the freekick he himself had won, quickly. Playing it short and to his left, to Fabián Ruiz he jogged unhurriedly forward. As he did, no one really followed him, all Portuguese eyes fixated on the ball.
This one of the strangest things -- but for a man 6'2" tall and appropriately heavy, Merino doesn't attract a lot of attention when he's not on the ball. It's a strange quality, one that goes under the radar when talking about the various qualities of this Spanish team. Perhaps that's why Portugal weren't ready for him. Perhaps it's simply because they thought he wouldn't really play. After all, a stress fracture of the foot had kept him out of the latter half of Arsenal's historic league winning season, out of all of Spain's preparatory matches for this tournament. In fact, Merino played just 28 minutes of football between January and the World Cup. What even could he do in such a big, tight match?
Either way, as he moved away from the ball -- just as the fourth official raised his board to signal six minutes added on in this crunch derby of a round of 16 tie (a derby that was a 0-0 and looked destined to stay that way for a while to come) -- everyone just glazed over his presence. He might as well still have been on the bench for all the attention they gave him.
As Ruiz passed it back infield, Rodri stepped up and changed the pace of the whole scenario by zipping a first-time ball directly up the field to Ferran Torres. It'd been a 5m pass, but one played with an urgency that took out Portugal's static midfield. As Torres trapped it, two markers immediately got attracted to him - Rúben Dias and João Neves. The movement of the former meant there was now a big gaping hole in the Portuguese defence where the right sided centre back ought to have been. Neves' sideways movement, meanwhile, meant that there would no runner going with Merino. It was not a threat that had registered at all.
Why would it? Apart from the factors outlined re: Merino, there was another angle to it - Ferran Torres' form. You see, as Torres collected it, Dias must have been confident of stopping the non-traditional centre-forward there. Also on as a sub, Torres had made little impact in the 15 minutes he'd been on the field till then. Just like he had through this tournament, Torres had looked short of confidence, a lack of goals (just one in the last ten for Spain) seeing doubt eat at him every time he touched the ball, seemingly crumbling under the weight of the questions of all those asking why he was on the team.
Except this time, he was ready... and he'd spotted Merino move into the void left by Dias. Turning ever so slightly with that first touch, Torres flicked a sensational through ball in behind Dias. The ball was perfectly weighted, for as Torres made that slight turn, Merino quickened his pace to flow into that gap left by Dias. Running through one-on-one now with the onrushing Diogo Costa -- excellent as the Portuguese keeper had been all game and despite being able to see it all play out directly in front of him, even he hadn't spotted the run Merino had made until it was too late -- and without taking a touch, swept it first-time under Costa and into the bottom near corner.
In a match that had severely lacked for quality in the final third, in which young Lamine Yamal had been beset by bad decision making, Mikel Oyarzabal with temporary loss of finishing ability and Cristiano Ronaldo doing his best mannequin impersonation, it was the midfielder no one ever notices that came up with the goods.
Within six minutes of coming on, he'd repaid Luis de la Fuente's faith: not just for this substitution in a big, big game, but for waiting for him to regain fitness. It had taken months of recovery and rehab, battling both body and mind as self-doubt set in, time spent repairing his body in the US, time spent away from his wife and newborn son. Two months on crutches, unable to take a step... and now, he was here stepping up to take his country into a World Cup quarterfinal.
It was a great moment for Merino and Spain, but one that highlighted the oddness of this sport. As Merino celebrated scoring his 48th career goal, another with 975 crumpled at the other end. The centre forward had not found a way to break the deadlock, but a central midfielder with an uncanny ability to disappear from plain sight just had.