Uruguay are out of the World Cup again and it’s nobody’s fault but theirs. “3 million dreams,” the banner said high in the stand in Guadalajara; instead it was a recurring nightmare. Divided and dysfunctional, led by a man who barely even says buenos dias to his players, and unable to get beyond a draw against Saudi Arabia or Cape Verde, they needed something big against Spain but they could only manage two shots on target all night, neither of which came before the 80th minute or carried even the slightest threat.
Spain meanwhile had just one, and that didn’t carry much of a threat either. But a dreadful mistake from Fernando Muslera allowed Alex Baena’s shot slip into the net just before a half-time break from which he did not come back. Uruguay fought but didn’t play much football and so they fell. For the second World Cup in a row they failed to get through the group and if four years ago that could be explained by the teams in their group – South Korea, Ghana and Portugal – and they had only been eliminated on goals scored, this time the list of opponents only made it worse, demanding a far deeper analysis.
As the final moments played out here, Guadalajara sang the name of the team that had beaten them to the next round: no, not Spain; Cape Verde. Uruguay had kicked and that was about it. Spain had survived them and gone through, as they were always going to.
This was a night in which nothing much that was good really happened, even if at the start it had looked like it might. Inside a minute, Mikel Oyarzabal had hit the side netting after Lamine Yamal robbed a loose ball and slipped him in. Inside four, Pedri almost played in Lamine Yamal. And inside six, the teenager went to take a corner, raising a hand that drew a roar from this arena that spoke of the excitement surrounding him, the way in which he changes the mood. The next time he ran at Juan Manuel Sanabria there was another roar because the defender had stopped him, which this time spoke of the threat he carries.
Yet if Uruguay looked a little nervous then, they did begin to make life more difficult for Spain, who found themselves a bit more hurried and a bit less comfortable than is the custom. Mistakes slipped in: Unai Simon dropped a cross and Baena’s misplaced pass almost allowed Manuel Ugarte to play in Fede Valverde. These were encouraging signs for Uruguay and although the threat around their own area remained – the clearest came when Marcos Llorente dashed on to a ball that Lamine Yamal let run through his legs – they grew into the game, albeit driven more by aggression than inspiration.
Valverde got all the way into the area to nudge a little inside ball to Darwin Núñez, whos attempted backheel ran across the front of the six-yard box. A moment later, Núñez nicked away from Marc Cucurella and sprinted up the right, only for his low cross to Agustín Canobbio not to find its way through. Next Simon couldn’t catch a long free kick towards the far post, dropping the ball at the feet of Canobbio. Turning, he wasn’t able to find a way past the bodies in the area. Ugarte shot over from 25 yards. All of it showcased an essential lack of quality, the final pass or touch rarely good enough.
And then it happened again. The goal that gave Spain a 42nd-minute lead and left Uruguay slipping out was a truly awful goal in every way: another calamitous, self-inflicted wound in a World Cup that had has too many of them. The move had started with Ugarte going down right on the halfway line, falling and twisting as he tried to get the ball off Pedri as the Spain midfielder turned away from pressure. Teammates called for Spain to stop, but there was no obligation to do so and no will either, still less as this had become a tough, physical game.
Spain worked the ball to Lamine Yamal on the right and he cut back by the corner of the area, where he too went down. Still they went on. Llorente was fastest to the loose ball, nicking it forward, hurdling the challenge and breaking into space to pull a cross back for Baena. The shot, first time and on the turn, was guided goalwards but shouldn’t have caused the goalkeeper too much difficulty. Except that too many moments have caused him too much difficulty here. The 40-year-old, who retired in April 2024 only to come back again, and whose prints are all over Uruguay’s most self-destructive moments this summer, allowed the ball to bounce over his hands and into the net.
Muslera, who had pointed at the pitch as if the blame lay elsewhere, didn’t come back out for the second half, his fourth World Cup and surely his last moment with the national team a sad, humiliating one. Nor did Ugarte, who was immediately carried off. It was hard to avoid the feeling that Uruguay’s hopes went with him if only because of the almost absurd fatalism of how it had all happened, again. There was something cruel in the way that they had conceded here and in both games in Miami too, a picture of their tournament.
There was an audio description too, Valverde withdrawn on the hour, pulling his shirt over his mouth to allow him to say exactly what he felt as he crossed the line to where the staff were waiting. Uruguay tried to go at Spain, but even as the game opened their limitations remained on display and time escaped. They couldn’t muster a single shot on target until Mathias Oliveira on 83 minutes and it wasn’t even clear that was a shot at all. When Nicolás de la Cruz added a second two minutes later it was from 30 yards and Simon’s save was simple.
Almost immediately after, Ferran Torres was suddenly in, one on one, but he hit the bar. Spain’s count, then, remained on one but it was enough. All that was left for Uruguay was for Canobbio to get the red card many of them could have had much sooner. And it was over, Marcelo Bielsa sitting on a light blue box and watching their World Cup end.
