Spain To Face Austria In Round Of 32 World Cup Match At SoFi Stadium

INGLEWOOD, CA — Spain will try to reach the round of 16 for the sixth time in the last seven World Cups when it faces Austria at SoFi Stadium in the first of Thursday's three World Cup round of 32 matches.

Spain won Group H with a 2-0-1 record, tying Cape Verde, 0-0, June 15, then defeating Saudi Arabia, 4-0, June 21, and Uruguay, 1-0, Friday.

"We're continuing to grow under pressure," coach Luis de la Fuente said Wednesday. "I love that high expectations are placed on us. Now it's up to us to live up to those expectations."

Spain was the 2010 World Cup champion. After failing to advance past the group stage in 2014, it reached the round of 16 in 2018 and 2022. La Roja won the 2024 European Championship.

The Spaniards are undefeated in their past 33 matches since a 1-0 loss to Colombia, March 22, 2024, with a 24--0-9 record over that span. Spain lost two penalty shootouts, which are considered ties on a team's record.

Austria was second in Group J, finishing ahead of Algeria with a zero goal differential compared to the Algerians' minus-2 after both teams were 1-1- 1.

Spain is third in the unofficial rankings released after the completion of Wednesday's play by FIFA, soccer's global governing body. Austria is 23rd.

The rankings are based on a point system in which points are added to or subtracted from a team's total based on the latest result. The ranking is considered unofficial until all matches are approved as international `A' matches. The latest official ranking was released June 11, the day the World Cup began.

The Opta supercomputer gives Spain a 79.19% chance of advancing to the round of 16 based on 10,000 pre-match simulations, Austria a 20.81% chance.

The winner will face the winner of the 4 p.m.

In the second match, Croatia will face Portugal in Toronto at 4 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time with the winner facing the Spain-Austria winner n a round of 16 match Monday in Arlington, Texas.

Thursday's final match will pit Algeria against Switzerland in Vancouver, British Columbia at 8 p.m.

Free watch parties for all three matches will be held at the Jackie Tatum Harvard Recreation Center in South Los Angeles and Venice Beach Recreation Center as part of the Kick It In the Park program organized by various city of Los Angeles departments that also include youth soccer clinics, neighborhood programming and community resources.

A watch party for the Spain-Austria match will also be held at the Los Angeles Central Library's Taper Auditorium.

Free watch parties for the first two matches will be held at the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles.

Both of the first two matches will be televised in English by Fox, while the third be carried by FS1. Telemundo will broadcast all three matches in Spanish.