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Luis Enrique's decision to call up as many as eight Barcelona players seems to be paying off.
Spain dominated Costa Rica, with special performances from Gavi, Ferran Torres, Jordi Alba, and Sergio Busquets supporting Luis Enrique's decision to rely on players from his former club Barcelona.
Formations and tactics
Spain started with the teenagers Gavi and Pedri flanking 34-year-old Sergio Busquets in the midfield of Spain’s 4-3-3 formation, with the major surprise being Manchester City’s Rodri starting at centreback while actual centrebacks like Eric Garcia watched from the bench.
Costa Rica started with a flat 4-4-2 formation, playing with two blocks of four, hoping to stifle Spain’s creativity from midfield. Spoiler alert, it did not work at all.
First Half
Costa Rica got a warning of things to come as Pedri found Dani Olmo in space in the box after only four minutes, but the RB Leipzig man fluffed his lines and let Costa Rica off the hook.
Spain finally broke Costa Rica with a masterful combination of quick passing and quick movement, and Olmo finished a masterful passing move with a brilliant chip over the charging Keylor Navas to give them a 1-0 lead after only 11 minutes had passed.
Spain continued to treat the ball like their personal property and had as much as 85% of the ball in the first 20 minutes.
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A one-time finish from Marco Asensio, following a lovely Jordi Alba cross in the 21st minute put the finishing touches on yet another flowing Costa Rican passing play, leaving Keylor Navas with no chance to stop it.
There seemed to be no letting up from Spain as they continued to stretch the Costa Rican team with their pass-move-pass philosophy that found holes in the opposition's defence at will.
It seemed like there was nothing Costa Rica could do to stop Spain from doing whatever they wanted with the ball. When they did find a way to stop Spain, it was through a foul on Jordi Alba in the box, giving Spain a chance to score their third of the game from the penalty spot.
The opportunity fell to Ferran Torres from the resulting penalty, and he stroked home from the spot, sending Navas the wrong way.
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With Torres’s goal, Spain became the first team to score three goals in the first 31 minutes of the World Cup, with no other team scoring more than once in the opening 30 minutes of their game at the World Cup so far.
Torres’ goal was also Spain’s 100th World Cup goal, as they joined an elite list of teams including Brazil and Argentina. The only other team to have three goals in the first half before Spain was England, and their final score against Iran must have sent shivers down the Costa Ricans' spines because they completely shut down, failing to play anything even vaguely resembling actual football for the remainder of the first half.
Second Half
In the first half, Spain limited Costa Rica to only 71 completed passes (70% pass completion), compared to their own 537 completed passes (94% pass completion), and from the start of the second half, it looked certain that there would be more of the same in the concluding period.
That proved to be the case as less than 10 minutes after the restart, Torres took advantage of a mix-up between Brian Oviedo and Navas in goal to sneak in a fourth for Spain and a second for himself on the night.
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With Spain’s job seemingly complete, they elected to bring off some of their star talents ahead of tougher fixtures in the group. Torres and Pedri were replaced by Alvaro Morata and Carlos Soler, but these changes did nothing to reduce Spain’s dominance in the game.
Spain also gave a debut to Barcelona’s teenage fullback Alejandro Balde who replaced Jordi Alba who had a brilliant game providing an assist and winning the penalty.
Costa Rica meanwhile brought on Kendal Watson and Bryan Ruiz, who became the oldest Costa Rican player to play at the World Cup.
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There were no real changes in the flow of the game as Spain continued to dominate the proceedings, finally adding to their tally with a sumptuous strike from Gavi from outside the area.
Gavi was brilliant for Spain, contributing to two goals before finally capping it off with his brilliant goal as he became the youngest player to score for Spain, on the same day he became the youngest player to play for Spain at the World Cup.
Despite resting some of their senior players for future games, Spain still did not drop in quality, and as they slowed the pace of the game to suit themselves, they still found a way to add to their tally with a laid-back finish from Soler, making it 6-0 after 90 minutes.
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Morata rounded off the scoring with an accomplished finish from the edge of the box to make it 7-0, breaking the Spanish record for the biggest victory in a World Cup fixture. In the end, Costa Rica were unable to get a single shot in 98 minutes of play, while Spain managed 16 shots on goal and seven on target, beating veteran goalkeeper Navas with all of them. The expected goals at full-time? 3.48 for Spain, and 0.00 for Costa Rica.
What next for Spain and Costa Rica
Costa Rica face Japan next, and after seeing the Blue Samurai shock Germany in a 2-1 win, it would be tough to see Costa Rica getting anything out of that game.
Spain's next fixture is against Germany and a win for them could see them qualify for the next stage and possibly knock Germany out of the World Cup at the group stage for the second tournament running.
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