Substitute Mikel Merino scored a dramatic injury-time winner as Spain beat Portugal 1-0 on Monday to reach the World Cup quarter-finals and end Cristiano Ronaldo’s international career.
The strike came in the first minute of stoppage time at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, where a crowd of 70,649 watched fellow substitute Ferran Torres slip Merino through to settle a tense last-16 tie.
The result confirmed a disappointing farewell for the 41-year-old Ronaldo, now playing his club football in Saudi Arabia, who had revealed on the eve of the match that this World Cup would be his last.
Spain, unbeaten and yet to concede a goal in the tournament, will now face either the United States or Belgium in the quarter-finals on Friday in Los Angeles. The Americans are the only co-host nation remaining in the competition.
Spain have won the World Cup once, in 2010, while Portugal’s best finish remains third place in 1966. The match had been billed partly as a meeting between generations, pitting Ronaldo against Spain’s 18-year-old Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal.
