Inglewood, California \u2014 Spain advanced to the World Cup round of 16 with a dominant 3-0 victory over Austria on Thursday powered by a double from Mikel Oyarzabal and another outstanding defensive effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain, which arrived at the tournament among the favourites and has yet to concede a goal, will next face Portugal or Croatia for a place in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Spaniards started brightly, with Lamine Yamal repeatedly troubling Austria’s defense as La Roja pressed for an early breakthrough on a sunny day in Southern California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain thought it had gone ahead on a short-range shot by Marc Cucurella, but the effort was ruled out for a foul on goalkeeper Alexander Schlager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pressure finally paid off when Marc Cucurella whipped a precise cross into the area and Oyarzabal steered it into the bottom corner, igniting the Spain-heavy crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schlager kept Austria in the match before halftime, producing back-to-back saves from a free kick and the ensuing scramble to ensure his side went into the interval trailing by only one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Austria’s best opportunity of the second half came when a lovely cross into the box was headed by Sasa Kalajdzic, but the ball landed harmlessly on top of the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Austria, which squeaked into the knockout round with a last-gasp goal to draw with Algeria, struggled to create clear chances against a Spain side that remained composed in possession and disciplined at the back to continue their shutout streak at the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pedro Porro added Spain’s second in the 66th minute with a header into the middle of the net in front of a sold-out crowd that included Spanish actors Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oyarzabal struck again in the 89th minute for his fourth goal of the tournament following a defensive lapse by a visibly frustrated Austrian side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain, World Cup winner in 2010, made an uncertain start to the tournament with a goalless draw against Cape Verde that raised questions about its form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it was far more assured against Austria and will take encouragement from the performance of 18-year-old Lamine, who looked to have shaken off the hamstring injury that hampered him earlier in the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: World Cup: Improving Spain outclasses Austria to ease into last 16<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Inglewood, California \u2014 Spain advanced to the World Cup round of 16 with a dominant 3-0 victory over Austria on Thursday powered by a double from Mikel Oyarzabal and another outstanding defensive effort. Spain, which arrived at the tournament among the favourites and has yet to concede a goal, will next face Portugal or Croatia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418955,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418954\/revisions\/418955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}