Despite playing against weaker opponents, the Barcelona contingent impressed for Luis Enrique’s side with a 7-0 win against Costa Rica.
The 2010 World Cup champions, Spain, have gotten off to a dominant and merciless start in a tournament where two of their potential competitors have already been eliminated by minnows.
After Dani Olmo scored the opening goal with a fine finish in the 11th minute, the outcome at Al Thumama Stadium was never in question.
Ten minutes later, Marco Asensio made it 2-0 with a clinical first-time finish, and Ferran Torres scored a pair of goals before Gavi became Spain’s youngest scorer at a World Cup with a volley off the outside of his right boot.
Marc Soler scored the sixth with a minute left in regulation, and Alvaro Morata added some extra shine in overtime.
At the final whistle, Luis Enrique’s squad had dominated the ball with over 80% of it, goalkeeper Unai Simon hadn’t been called into action once, and they had completed over 900 of a little over a thousand passes.
Prior to the tournament, Spain’s biggest concern was whether or not they would be able to finish their chances, especially with former Chelsea man Morata at the helm. In the end, he was the first player to come off the bench in the middle of the second.
Even at their peak a decade ago, they had trouble converting their ball dominance into goals. Fortunately, that is not the case here.
At the half-hour mark, all three of the team’s forwards had scored, making this only the second time in World Cup history that this has happened.
It was a cruel blow that the extra eight minutes were shown right after Soler’s goal, giving Morata plenty of time to make it seven. The second half started with three more goals.
Throughout, they never let up on the pedal, and it was shocking to see.
There is nothing missing from this unit. There were times when the passing and movement were a blur, even for the viewers, with Sergio Busquets orchestrating from deep behind Pedri and Gavi, who at 19 and 17, are not too much older than the 34-year-old Barcelona veteran.
Because of how confident Spain felt, they were able to rest key players by replacing two-thirds of their roster with one-third of the match still to go.
The last one standing then scored the country’s youngest World Cup goalscorer with a magnificent fifth. While Hansi Flick and his players may have begun to recover from the initial shock of Germany’s loss to Japan as Spain began to coast, they will be struck with fear at 7 p.m. on Sunday when they begin analyzing the performance of their next opponents.
If Luis Enrique’s squad is even half as brutal as they were against the 2014 winners, the World Cup will be over for a second year in a row.
Rodri started at center back alongside Aymeric Laporte, and the match was so easy for them that even the ruthlessly dominant Manchester City players may have been surprised.