Uruguay 0-1 Spain: FIFA World Cup Match Report
Final Score
Uruguay
0 — 1
Spain
Key Moments
Half-time: Uruguay 0-1 Spain
Final score: Uruguay 0-1 Spain
Post-Match Analysis
Match Summary
The heaviest fixture the Group H draw could produce was settled by one goal scored before half-time and then defended for forty-five minutes. Uruguay 0-1 Spain finished the group stage with Spain top and Uruguay bottom, which is not the way the group looked when the fixtures were published.
Spain came into the final round having drawn 0-0 with Cape Verde Islands and beaten Saudi Arabia 4-0, and they left it with a group record of five goals scored and none conceded. Three matches, three clean sheets. By the end of the tournament that had become one goal conceded in seven, the exception coming in a quarter-final against Belgium, and this match is a small but exact preview of how they got there — score once, concede nothing, control the remainder.
Uruguay needed a result and could not produce one. Their tournament ended with two draws and a defeat, two points, three scored and four conceded. Trailing at the interval in a match they had to win, they found nothing in the second half against a defence that gave up nothing to anybody in the group phase.
What It Settled
Spain finished first in Group H on seven points and went into the Round of 32 against Austria, then past Portugal, Belgium and France before beating Argentina 1-0 in extra time in the final. This was the last of their group matches, and by the final whistle the clean-sheet run that came to define the campaign was already three games long.
Uruguay were eliminated in last place. Cape Verde's goalless draw with Saudi Arabia the same day left them second on three points, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Uruguay on two apiece. Three of the four teams in Group H finished within a point of each other, and the one that ended up bottom was the one that had led Cape Verde 2-1 at half-time six days earlier.
Prediction Review
Our pre-match call was Under 2.5 Goals at 1.75. It won with room to spare — one goal in ninety minutes. The case was that two organised sides in a match neither could afford to lose would produce a tense, low-tempo contest settled by a single moment, and that is precisely what the scoreline records. The one thing that made it uncomfortable is that the goal came before half-time rather than late; a chasing Uruguay for forty-five minutes is the scenario that breaks an under. It held, and Spain's group record suggests it was never likely to break. Verdict: won