Spain arrived at its World Cup opener against Cabo Verde on Monday with its full squad available, a late lift after injuries had threatened to trim Luis de la Fuente's options before the tournament began. Lamine Yamal, Nico Williams and Víctor Muñoz were all back in training, even if the coach was not expected to rush any of them into the starting lineup in Atlanta.
That is the shift Spain wanted most. Yamal, who is 18, missed the rest of Barcelona's season after injuring his left hamstring in a La Liga match in April, while Williams was out after a hamstring injury in May and Muñoz returned from a muscle problem suffered that same month with Osasuna. Spain also had to wait for Mikel Merino and Fabián Ruiz to clear injury setbacks before they rejoined the group, and Fermín López did not arrive in time because of a fractured foot.
The timing matters because Spain did not have much of it. The team trained in Tennessee before the tournament, then moved straight into the pressure of a group that leaves little room for hesitation: Cabo Verde on Monday in Atlanta, Arabia Saudí on 21 June in Atlanta and Uruguay on 26 June in Guadalajara, México. For Yamal and Williams, that makes the difference between being available and being used; both had recently returned to training after injuries, but the staff still had every reason to ease them back rather than ask for a full workload on day one.
That caution fits the pattern around de la Fuente's team. Spain came into this World Cup as the holder of the Eurocopa de 2024, the winner of the Liga de Naciones de 2023 and the runner-up behind Portugal in the 2025 Liga de Naciones, but its bigger task is still the one it has not solved since 2010: getting beyond the round of 16 at a World Cup. Full fitness before the opener helps. It does not erase the question of how quickly Spain can turn a healthy squad into a team that can go deep enough to matter.
What happens next is simple enough on paper and harder on the field. Spain starts against Cabo Verde, then has only a short turn before Arabia Saudí on 21 June, which means the first real test for Yamal and Williams may be not whether they are in the squad, but how much de la Fuente trusts them before the schedule tightens again.
