Spain's 4-1 win over Croatia in Seville wasn't a match so much as a demonstration. Lamine Yamal scored in the second minute — a curling first-time finish from the edge of the area after Fermin Lopez's dummy — and from that point the question was never whether Spain would win, but by how much. The 17-year-old added a second in the 63rd minute from a tight angle and assisted Marc Pubill's headed goal in between. Forty matches unbeaten, a European record, and the kid who's supposed to be the future is already the present. The context matters. This was a rematch of the 2023 Nations League final, which Spain won on penalties. Croatia are not pushovers. Dion Beljo's 28th-minute header briefly leveled the score and hinted at a contest, but Spain retook the lead within three minutes through Pubill and never looked back. Nico Williams sealed it in the 89th minute. The margin flatters nobody — Spain were this much better. What's striking about Yamal isn't the goals, though the goals are absurd for a player his age. It's the consistency of output. He scored in the second minute against England at Wembley days earlier. He scored in the second minute here. He's not producing moments; he's producing patterns. The curling finish, the whipped cross into the six-yard box, the ability to receive in tight spaces and shoot without backlift — these are repeatable actions, not one-offs. Alex Baena and Pedri fed the machine with precise service, and Fermin Lopez's intelligence in dummy runs created the geometry Yamal exploits. This is a system, not a star vehicle. Spain's depth — Williams coming off the bench to score, Pubill arriving from the second line — means opponents can't simply bracket Yamal and solve the problem. The broader Nations League picture shifted too. England beat Czech Republic 2-0 in Prague to leapfrog Croatia into second in Group A3. Spain sit top with a perfect record, and the gap between them and the rest of the group looks structural, not circumstantial. Rodri paraded the World Cup trophy before kickoff, a ceremony for what Spain achieved in July. But the real statement was the 90 minutes that followed — a team that won everything last summer and appears to be getting better, powered by a teenager who plays like he's been doing this for a decade.
