World Cup 2026 round-up: Spain and Netherlands impress, Germany leave it late and more

World Cup 2026 action continued over the weekend as favourites Spain finally announced their arrival with a dominant 4-0 victory over Saudi Arabia.

Elsewhere, Germany booked their spot in the knockouts after beating Ivory Coast 2-1, Netherlands hammered Sweden 5-1 and Iran battled to a goalless draw with Belgium.

Japan thrashed Tunisia 4-0 to end the African side’s campaign, while minnows Cape Verde managed a 2-2 stalemate against Uruguay.

Curaçao secured their first-ever World Cup point courtesy of a 0-0 draw with Ecuador and Mohamed Salah inspired Egypt to a maiden World Cup victory in a 3-1 win over New Zealand.

Spain dominate Saudi Arabia

Lamine Yamal and Mikel Oyarzabal starred as Spain cruised past Saudi Arabia in Atlanta, with Yamal scoring his first World Cup goal before Oyarzabal’s double and a Hassan Al-Tambakti own goal completed the scoreline.

“We played an exceptional first half and a good second half too,” Spain manager Luis de la Fuente told DAZN.

“Above all, this allows us to maintain our momentum and face the important games ahead. Uruguay is going to be a difficult and very tough match.

“We’d reviewed it [the 0-0 draw with Cape Verde] with the players and we all agreed that we needed more verticality and more intensity.

“You could see it in our shots – from the very first minute we were suffocating the opponent and pinning them back into their own box.

“We are very happy with that approach, but we have to keep growing and improving.”

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Germany edge Ivory Coast

Deniz Undav was the hero for Germany against Ivory Coast in Toronto, coming off the bench to overturn Franck Kessie’s opener with two brilliant strikes, including a 94th-minute winner.

Analysing the match for ITV, Gary Neville said: “In the first 10 or 15 minutes of the second half, Ivory Coast should have killed the game off.

“But it’s just what Germany do. They’ve ruined my life on multiple occasions.

“You’ve got to hand it to Germany there. They were struggling in parts of that match.

“They stuck at it – persistence, resilience – and they got there in the end. It’s so Germany.”

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Netherlands hammer poor Sweden

Braces from Brian Brobbey and Cody Gakpo powered the Netherlands past Sweden in Houston, with Crysencio Summerville adding a fifth after Anthony Elanga had grabbed a consolation goal.

“Obviously really disappointed. It was a tricky one to analyse,” admitted Sweden head coach Graham Potter in the post-match press conference.

“I thought we did a lot of good things in the game. We had a lot of opportunities, but defensively you can’t concede that many and hope to win.

“We’ll learn a lot from the game. We were playing against a good team. They hurt us in the wide areas. The first goal comes from a long ball we didn’t deal with very well.

“We didn’t get off to a good start but we came back into it – second part of the first half, I thought we were the better team, but then we started badly in the second half.

“The boys kept going but it’s one of those things we’ll learn a lot from. Sometimes you have to have these experiences. We have to accept the scoreline and learn from it.”

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Belgium held by Iran

Nathan Ngoy saw red for Belgium as the Europeans stuttered to a draw against Iran, who had a free-kick goal ruled out by a VAR in a spirited showing in Inglewood.

“We lacked efficiency up front. We hit the target, but we didn’t test the goalkeeper enough. Playing with 10 men didn’t help either,” Belgium boss Rudi Garcia explained to the media after the game.

“We’ve had matches like this before and usually scored at least three goals. That’s part of a slow start to a World Cup.

“At times, we looked a bit hesitant. We know exactly what result we’ll need against New Zealand.”

Striker Romelu Lukaku added: “We have to analyse what went wrong because we created so many chances without scoring, and that’s frustrating.

“We play with too much emotion in key moments.”

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