Nine changes, two debutants, and a tenth straight win. Spain’s 3-1 Nations League victory over Czechia in Oviedo wasn’t just another routine night for the world champions — it was the night Lamine Yamal made the Ballon d’Or race personal, answering Harry Kane’s Rijeka brace just hours after England’s 7-0 demolition of Croatia. Tactical masterclass or warning sign? The truth, as always with Luis de la Fuente’s side, is in the details.
Nine changes, two debuts, same machine
Luis de la Fuente named a starting XI in Oviedo that bore almost no resemblance to the side that had dismantled Croatia 4-1 in Seville four days earlier. Nine changes. Nine. A full international debut at right-back for Iván Fresneda, a senior debut up front for Roberto Fernández, and a midfield built around the familiar spine of Rodri, Pedri and Dani Olmo.
And yet for 45 minutes, it barely mattered. Spain’s 4-3-3 purred through the same patterns that have made them the most feared side in world football since the summer: Rodri anchoring, Pedri and Olmo drifting between the lines, the wide forwards pinning Czechia’s back five, and the ball recycled with metronomic patience. This is the story of Spain right now — the system is the star, and the system has depth that no other nation can touch.
David Raya kept goal behind a back four of Fresneda, Robin Le Normand, Aymeric Laporte and Fran García. In front of them, Rodri sat at the base with Pedri and Olmo as the interiors. Yamal and Álex Baena held the flanks; Roberto Fernández led the line. On paper it was a B-team. On grass it looked like the world champions.
The Ballon d’Or duel: Yamal answers Kane
Six minutes. That’s all it took. Receiving the ball on the right, Yamal cut inside, played a one-two with Dani Olmo in the right half-space, and curled an effort over debutant Tottenham goalkeeper Antonín Kinský and into the far top corner. It was the kind of goal that has become his signature — and it was his fourth in three games for Spain, the third match running that he has given La Roja an early lead, per UEFA’s own Matchday 3 round-up.
The timing was everything. Hours earlier in Rijeka, Harry Kane had struck twice in England’s record 7-0 annihilation of Croatia — the performance we broke down in our tactical analysis of England’s record rout — taking his international tally to 89 goals and firing himself firmly into the Ballon d’Or conversation ahead of the ceremony on 26 October. Yamal’s answer was to score first, score early, and remind everyone that he is joint-top scorer in this season’s Nations League alongside Kane and Finland’s Leo Walta, all on four goals.
Tactically, the goal was pure Spain. Olmo’s drift inside from his advanced midfield role dragged Czechia’s midfield pivot toward the ball, creating the pocket for the one-two. Kinský — impressive throughout, with smart saves from Pedri’s low strike and Olmo’s half-volley — had no chance. This is the Barcelona connection at work: as we explored in our analysis of Barcelona’s attacking revolution, the understanding between Yamal, Olmo and Pedri is now Spain’s most potent weapon, a club-forged triangle transplanted into the national side.
Rodri’s strike: the captain’s goal that mattered
The second goal, in the 35th minute, belonged to the captain. The ball was recycled into the Czech half, Rodri surged toward the area, Pedri’s pass for Roberto Fernández was blocked — and there was Rodri, reacting quickest to lash the loose ball into the roof of the net. His first Spain goal since Euro 2024, as ESPN’s game analysis noted.
Forget the aesthetics for a moment and consider the symbolism. Rodri, the 2024 Ballon d’Or winner, is the player who makes this machine run: the single pivot whose positional discipline lets Pedri and Olmo roam, whose press-resistance turns opposition traps into Spanish transitions. On a night when Spain fielded a rotated side, it was fitting that the one constant — the captain — delivered the goal that killed the contest’s tension. The 2-0 scoreline at half-time flattered Czechia, not Spain.
There is a broader point here about Spain’s tactical identity under De la Fuente. The 4-3-3 is non-negotiable, but its strength is its modularity: the interiors can be Pedri and Olmo, or Merino and Fabián Ruiz, or any permutation of the most technically gifted midfield pool on the planet, and the patterns hold. Rodri is the fixed point around which everything rotates.
The second-half wobble De la Fuente admitted
If the first half was a masterclass, the second was a seminar in what rotation costs. De la Fuente withdrew Yamal and Baena at half-time — Víctor Muñoz and Yéremy Pino replacing them — and Spain’s grip on the game loosened visibly. De la Fuente himself was strikingly honest afterwards, telling VAVEL: “We played well in the first half. In the second, the substitutions were effective, but we lost continuity in our play… four matches in ten days, including the Croatia game, so the demands are high… It’s true we’ve lost some of our sharpness.”
The tactical detail is instructive. Muñoz and Pino are both touchline-hugging wingers by instinct; where Yamal and Baena had tucked inside to create overloads in the half-spaces, the replacements stayed wide. Czechia’s midfield, previously suffocated, suddenly found passing lanes. Adam Hložek broke down the left, delayed his pass, and rolled it to the overlapping Jiří Sláma, whose drilled finish past Raya made it 2-1 with twenty minutes left. Moments later, Raya dropped a straightforward ball and Ryan Naderi fired into the net — only for the goal to be ruled out for a prior foul on Le Normand. Spain were rattled, and for a brief spell the unthinkable — dropping points at home to Czechia — felt possible.
This is the paradox of squad depth: nine changes prove your quality, but the drop-off is real, and better opposition than Czechia would have punished it. De la Fuente knows it, which is exactly why his post-match candour matters.
Krejčí’s red and Merino’s hammer
Football, though, has a way of punishing the brave. Czech captain Ladislav Krejčí, already booked, lunged into a second cautionable challenge in the 85th minute and walked. Ten men, two goals down with five minutes left: the comeback died on the spot.
Mikel Merino applied the finishing touch, slamming a loose ball into the bottom corner in the 89th minute to restore the two-goal cushion. The Arsenal midfielder’s late runs into the box have become a reliable weapon for club and country, and here he timed his arrival perfectly on a quick Spanish break. 3-1. Game over. Tenth straight win in all competitions for the world champions.
What it means: three clear, ten straight, Split next
The table tells the story of the group: Spain nine points from three, England six, Croatia three, Czechia pointless — Reuters’ wrap of the Matchday 3 action confirming La Roja three points clear at the top of League A Group 3. UEFA noted this is the first time Spain have opened a Nations League campaign with three successive wins.
Consider the context of the week across Europe: Jürgen Klopp finally got his first Germany win on the same Matchday 3 slate, France were held by Italy, and England’s 7-0 was the loudest statement of the night. Yet it is Spain — quiet, ruthless, rotated — who sit top of the group that contains the team that just scored seven.
The squad story continues to evolve. Ferran Torres withdrew from the camp with an ankle issue and Nico Williams dropped out with a thigh problem, joining Pedro Porro, Eric García and Alejandro Grimaldo on the sidelines; Real Madrid’s Carlos Espí was called up in Torres’s place after a scarcely believable five goals and two assists in Spain Under-21s’ 13-0 demolition of San Marino, as Reuters reported. Espí is now on debut watch for Tuesday’s trip to Split, where Croatia — humiliated in Rijeka — will be waiting with revenge on their minds.
That is the real test. A rotated Spain side beating Czechia at home proves the floor of this squad is higher than anyone else’s ceiling. But Croatia away, four days after the 7-0, with Modrić’s era ending in real time, is a different animal entirely. De la Fuente will almost certainly restore his first-choice XI — and if Yamal and Kane keep trading goals across the continent, the Ballon d’Or race might just be decided on nights like this one.
Ten wins in a row. Nine changes. Three points clear. The machine rolls on — but Split will tell us whether it rolls over everyone.
