Super-sub Merino does it again as Spain edge Belgium to reach the semis

Spain reached the World Cup semi-finals with a 2-1 win over Belgium in Los Angeles, substitute Mikel Merino striking a late winner for the second knockout round running. Fabián Ruiz's opener was cancelled out by Charles De Ketelaere — the first goal Spain had conceded all tournament — before Merino pounced on a Senne Lammens spill on 88 minutes, after Thibaut Courtois went off injured. Spain face France in the semi-final.

Spain are into the World Cup semi-finals, and the man who took them there was, once again, the one who began the night on the bench. Mikel Merino struck an eighty-eighth-minute winner to sink Belgium 2-1 in Los Angeles, the second knockout round running that the substitute has delivered the decisive blow. La Roja march on; Belgium's golden generation falls short once more.

For long spells this was Spain doing what Spain do, controlling the ball and the game. They led on thirty minutes when Fabián Ruiz smashed home a rebound after Dani Olmo's shot was blocked, and with sixty-eight percent of the ball and eighteen shots they looked in complete command.

But Belgium have quality of their own, and on forty-one minutes they struck against the run of play. Timothy Castagne crossed and Charles De Ketelaere rose to head home, and it carried a piece of history: it was the first goal Spain had conceded in the entire tournament, ending a record run of clean sheets. Level at the break, Belgium dared to believe.

Then their night turned cruel. On seventy-one minutes Thibaut Courtois, so often their saviour, was forced off in tears with a hip injury, replaced by the young Senne Lammens. And it was the substitute keeper's misfortune to write the ending: with two minutes left he spilled a shot, and up popped Merino, exactly as he had against Portugal, to bundle in the winner.

It was, on balance, deserved. Spain had been the better side throughout, and Luis de la Fuente's team have now found a way to win when it was not flowing, the mark of a serious tournament contender. For Belgium, beaten finalists of nobody's expectations after routing the USA, it is another chapter in a long story of a gifted generation that keeps falling just short.

And so the first semi-final is set, and it is a heavyweight: Spain will meet France in Dallas on Tuesday, two of the tournament favourites and two of its most in-form sides colliding for a place in the final. On this evidence, it is a tie to relish.

For Kenya and the neutrals, this was a quality watch, tiki-taka patience rewarded by a poacher's instinct at the death, with a dash of heartbreak in Courtois's exit. Merino tena, mchezaji wa benchi anayeamua mambo, na Hispania wako nusu fainali: Merino again, the bench player who decides things, and Spain are in the semi-final. Follow the road to the final on our bracket.