By Dylan Bettencourt
Spain put on a glittering display to defeat Costa Rica 7-0 on Wednesday night in their World Cup opener in Qatar.
The 2010 World Cup champions weren’t seen as favourites heading into Qatar but will now be looked at with much more vigour following their triumph.
A delightful goal from Dani Olmo gave the Spainards the lead in the 11th minute of the fixture and it looked as if they would grab a few more goals.
And that is exactly what happened.
Just 10 minutes later, Real Madrid winger Marco Asensio doubled his side’s lead with a tidy finish into the bottom right corner.
Spain were cruising along nicely and killed the game off at the 30 minute mark when Ferran Torres slotted home a penalty.
The Barcelona man found the back of the net once again, just ten minutes into the second-half to give Spain a four-goal lead.
Matters went from bad to worse for Costa Rica as Barcelona youngster Gavi tucked away Spain’s fifth goal of the night.
It proved a special night for Gavi who also became Spain’s youngest ever player to feature in a World Cup fixture.
The scoring however did not stop there as Carlos Soler scored Spain’s sixth goal after his PSG teammate Keylor Navas parried the ball into his path.
Just when the scoring looked done, striker Alvaro Morata slotted home Spain’s seventh goal of the evening.
The victory serves as Spain’s highest margin of victory in World Cup history.
While it remains early days in the World Cup, Spain’s performance will put them up there as contenders reach the latter stages of the showpiece.
Spain will now feel confident that they can advance to the knockout stages but will have to claim a victory over either Germany or Japan.
They face the former first, and will feel confident they can claim a victory over Germany after they lost 2-1 to Japan earlier on Wednesday.
Germany will have to claim all three points against Spain on Sunday if they are to have any chance of making it out of the group.
Similarly, Costa Rica will need a victory over Japan to improve their chances of progressing out of the group.
Pictured above: Spain’s celebrations
Image source: @Goal
