Portugal vs Spain, FIFA World Cup 2026 Highlights: Ronaldo’s last World Cup campaign ends with 1-0 defeat to ESP in RO16
In World Cups, this is the first time these two sides were meeting since the 2018 edition in Russia where Ronaldo singlehandedly took the game away from Spain with a hattrick in what eventually turned out to be a 3-3 draw.
FOLLOW HIGHLIGHTS FROM PORTUGAL VS SPAIN FIFA WORLD CUP MATCH BELOW.
It’s tempting to pin the encounter as a clash of eras, of generations, a marker to measure how football has changed between Ronaldo’s first World Cup in 2006 and Yamal’s in 2026. But look closer, and you find two similar personalities when they were 18. (AP)
In Spain vs Portugal, a star racing future vs a superstar chasing past
All his life, Lionel Messi’s shadow has loomed over Lamine Yamal. He was just an infant when a photographer arranged a shoot wherein Messi was bathing Yamal. Years later, when he stepped into Barcelona’s La Masia Academy, he was Messi’s blessed inheritor, the wunderkind beyond his years. Every record he broke in the league was once the Argentine’s.
But in the wee hours of Tuesday in India, when Spain takes on Portugal in a World Cup knockout game, the silhouette behind Yamal will not be that of Messi. It will be of Messi’s grand rival, another great, and a voluminous record-setter in league and world football: Cristiano Ronaldo. (READ MORE)