Spain Ease Off Costa Rica With 7-0 Win

Spain thrashed Costa Rica 7-0 in their first opening World Cup win since 2006, marking the perfect start to a tough-looking Group E for coach Luis Enrique.

With just 11 minutes into the game, Spain opened the floodgates of goals with Dani Olmo, finishing a move started by Pedri and marking Spain’s 100th World Cup goal.

Enrique’s men applied constant pressure on Los Ticos’ penalty area and Asensio slotted past a stricken Keylor Navas before Ferran Torres tucked away his penalty, rounding off an outrageously dominant first half.

Perpetual second-half pressure paid dividends once again, as Torres added to the Central Americans’ misery by grabbing his brace from six yards after chaos in the box.

Enrique may have seen this tournament as a chance to unleash a new era of Spanish football, with 20 of his 26-player squad making their first World Cup appearances, and as Gavi made it five with a sumptuous volley you could sense Spanish belief reverberating across the stands.

The Barcelona youngster wasn’t overshadowed by the excellent performance of his midfield teammate Pedri, as he became the youngest goalscorer in this tournament since Pele in 1958.

Substitutes Carlos Soler and Álvaro Morata added the cherry on top of an excellent performance with a pair of composed finishes in a torturous eight minutes of added-time for the powerless Los Ticos, who saw their winless World Cup streak stretched to seven.

The Punch/Lateefah Ibrahim