Spain’s opening match is sure to be a huge win? Recent World Cup opening match data says it’s not necessarily the case.

Many fans believe Spain will beat Cape Verde by four or five goals. But if you look up Spain’s first-match records from recent World Cups, you’ll find a pattern: they actually rarely go on a rampage and rack up a massive clean goal margin in their very first game.

In the most recent Qatar World Cup, Spain routed Costa Rica 7-0 in their opening match. That game was indeed exhilarating, but Costa Rica at the time was in a slump of rough transition. Going further back to the 2018 Russia World Cup, Spain drew 3-3 with Portugal in their first match—an open, back-and-forth attacking battle. In the 2014 Brazil World Cup, Spain suffered a 1-5 defeat to the Netherlands in their opening match—of course, that was mainly due to their own collapse. From this perspective, Spain’s scorelines in their opening matches are actually quite volatile, and they don’t have a tradition of “reliable big wins.”

What’s more, head coach De la Fuente is very pragmatic. He has repeatedly stressed that in the World Cup opener, the most important thing is to get three points, not to rack up clean goal difference. With key players such as Yamal injured, Spain may also play steadily and securely in the first half; after scoring one or two goals, they start to control the tempo and run down time. If Spain is already leading by two goals early on, they are very likely not to keep launching wild attacks, but instead use possession and control to wear down Cape Verde’s stamina and drag the match into garbage time. This is an important signal for prediction players. Don’t expect Spain to deliver a 7-0 win in every match—that’s not their style. My final judgment is that a 3-0 or 2-0 scoreline for Spain is the most reasonable.

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