Portugal vs Spain
Competition/Round: 2026 World Cup, Round of 16
Spain Outs & Doubts: Yeremi Pino, Nico Williams, Victor Muñoz (doubt)
Portugal Outs & Doubts: None
Date/Time: Monday, July 6, 2026, 3pm ET, 12pm PT (USA), 9pm CET (Barcelona), 8pm BST/WAT (UK & Nigeria), 12.30am IST (India, Tuesday)
Venue: AT&T Stadium, Dallas, United States
Referee: Anthony Taylor (ENG)
How to watch on TV: FOX (USA), BBC One (UK), United8 Sports 1 (India), SuperSport (Nigeria), TVE La 1 (Spain), others
How to watch online: FuboTV (USA), BBC
iPlayer (UK), ZEE5 (India), DAZN (Spain), others
Following a dominant victory over Austria to win their first knockout match since 2010, Spain return to action for a must-see World Cup Round of 16 clash against Portugal in Dallas on Monday afternoon.
La Roja arrive at this stage after their best performance of the tournament in the Round of 32, cruising past Austria and dominating every phase of the game. They finally played like title contenders, but now face a monster test on the road to the quarter-finals.
Portugal’s pre-tournament credentials placed them as one of the favorites due to their depth of world-class talent in almost every position, but their World Cup performance has not been anywhere near good enough.
In fact, Portugal can count themselves extremely lucky to be here after being thoroughly outplayed by Croatia and needing a very late winner and a very controversial VAR decision to avoid extra-time and escape the Round of 32.
Roberto Martínez’s side do not look like favorites or something even close to that, but it’s impossible to think this will be easy for Spain. Portugal tend to rise to the occasion, and they beat Spain in last year’s Nations League Final. They have too much talent to be taken for granted, and they’ll require La Roja’s very best.
The duel between Lamine Yamal and Nuno Mendes was a big talking point in that Nations League clash and is once again the big highlight matchup in this one, and Lamine’s ability to conquer one of his toughest opponents will be crucial to Spain’s ability to advance to the quarters.
Spain showed in the last round they are a better team than Portugal, but their opponents have a crazy talented collection of individuals. It’s time to see what wins at the biggest stage.
Let’s dance.
(Be careful, Lamine.)
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Spain (4-2-3-1): Simón; Porro, Cubarsí, Laporte, Cucurella; Rodri, Pedri; Yamal, Olmo, Baena; Oyarzabal
Portugal (4-2-3-1): Costa; Cancelo, Dias, Veiga, Mendes; Neves, Vitinha; Neto, Fernandes, Leão; Ronaldo
PREDICTION
Portugal is messy and should be beaten, but their talent simply cannot be taken for granted. This will be fun and open and full of chances, and I’m picking Spain to find a way to win a thriller: 3-2 La Roja.
