Spain’s Mikel Merino enjoys happy knack of scoring late winners

The midfielder has risen from the bench to come up with the decisive goal in the last two rounds – his country’s first World Cup knockout wins since they were champions in 2010

“I look behind me and I see Mikel Merino and I think: ‘I’m calm as can be,’” Luis de la Fuente said when at last the heart rates had returned to normal. Everyone else’s heart rates, anyway. In those moments when time is running out and the tension is running high, there’s something about the Spain coach. And there’s certainly something about the midfielder.

On the afternoon before Spain faced Belgium in their quarter-final, De la Fuente had an attack of the giggles as he recalled how when he was a kid only three television events gathered his family around the screen: the national team, Eurovision and the gloriously silly, inexplicably bizarre gameshow Un, dos, tres (whose UK version was 3-2-1). He had watched Spain fall at this stage repeatedly, the quarter-finals a barrier they couldn’t overcome, knocked out there in 1986, 1994 and 2002, but now that it was his turn to face it instead of stress here he was falling about, crying with laughter.

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