Mikel Merino Reveals He Feared Missing the World Cup After a Stress Fracture Put Him on Crutches

Mikel Merino stepped off the Spain team bus at the Melanie Lane training ground and admitted something he rarely says out loud: for a stretch earlier this year, he thought his World Cup was over before it started.

“When they told me about my injury I didn’t think I would be at the World Cup,” the Arsenal midfielder said, fresh from training in the final days before Sunday’s final against Argentina. A stress fracture in his foot had defied easy diagnosis, and the uncertainty hurt more than the injury itself. Surgery at the end of January brought a strange kind of comfort. At least there was an answer. At least something was being done.

What followed were two months on crutches, then a slow, private rebuild. Merino spent some days working alone. On others his wife helped him, lifting and carrying gear around their home, a role he says felt backwards given she was pregnant at the time. He calls the strength she showed the reason he made it back at all. He also found a resilience in himself he hadn’t expected. Between January and the World Cup, he played just 28 minutes of football before flying to the tournament and leaving his newborn son, Marco, behind.

“Just being here is a victory for me,” he said. “God willing we can win it.”

A Habit of Deciding Games Late

Spain’s run to a second World Cup final in 16 years owes plenty to Merino’s habit of turning up exactly when his team needs him. At Euro 2024, sent on as a substitute against Germany in Stuttgart, he scored in the 119th minute to send Spain into the semi-finals. At this World Cup he came off the bench again to head in the 91st-minute goal that beat Portugal and put Spain into the quarter-finals in Dallas. His wife and son missed that one. Four days later, in Los Angeles, they were in the stadium when he did it again against Belgium, coming on with the clock reading 85 minutes and 32 seconds and scoring the winner two minutes later. He touched the ball twice.

Each goal brought the same celebration: a run to the corner flag, circling it the way his father, Angel Miguel, did when he scored late for Osasuna in that same Stuttgart stadium 33 years earlier.

“I’m proud to follow in my dad’s footsteps, to have learnt all I’ve learnt from him, and the respect will always be there,” Merino said, laughing as he added that his mother still won’t concede his father was the lesser player, World Cup medal or not.

He doesn’t view his role as a lesser one. “Coming from the bench isn’t the ideal plan for any player, but when you join a national team that’s as strong as I and Lautaro have, you value every opportunity and try to help your team if you come on or if you don’t,” he said, drawing a parallel with Argentina’s own substitute goalscorer, Lautaro Martinez. “You focus on the present, embrace the situation, and think of yourself as the guy who can do it. I have complete belief in myself, my ability: every time I come on to the pitch I think I can have impact.”

A Group Built Under De la Fuente From the Under-19s

The roots of this Spain squad’s trust in each other go back further than this tournament. Luis de la Fuente’s first title as a coach came with the European Under-19s in 2015, 11 years ago, when Merino and Rodri played in the same midfield and Unai Simón sat on the bench. Ten members of the current squad have played under De la Fuente at junior level.

“I was talking to the coach about that the other day because it was the anniversary of that tournament,” Merino said. “We were saying, ‘how we’ve changed.’ But the essence is the same: the essence of the coach, of the players that came through. That’s the strength of the group. There are more grey hairs, more wrinkles, more worries, but the humility and commitment remains.”

That long history explains why belief held firm when De la Fuente’s reign nearly stalled almost as soon as it began. Spain lost in Scotland early in his tenure, a result that from the outside looked like it might cost him the job. From that point, they have lost just once in 37 games, on penalties in a Nations League final. They have gone on to win the Nations League and the Euros, and now they stand one win from a World Cup as well.

“Often, it’s more a case of believing than something you actually see,” Merino said. “We have a very good group, a generation of players whose level is high. We knew there was potential there, we could see things happening. Even that night in Scotland, when many people gave us up for dead or thought it wasn’t going to go well with this generation, we trusted in what we were doing, we knew the group was spectacular. And, look, it’s paid off: we were proven right.”

He credited the coach directly for building a squad on more than tactics. “It’s thanks to Luis and the squad he assembled, focused on being a good human first and then being a good footballer,” he said. “That helps a lot when it comes to spending a lot of time together. We know each other very well, we know when to joke, when to be silent; that’s the strength of the group.”

Forty-Six Days Together, and Still Getting Along

Merino laughed when asked how the group has coped with close to seven weeks living in each other’s pockets. “I wouldn’t say we were bursting to spend another two months together,” he said. “Thank God, we’re coming to an end now, but, yes, we’re a very strong group. That’s why we’re here.”

Downtime has looked different for different players. Some gather round the PlayStation. Dani Olmo and Unai Simón have kept up a running Mario Kart rivalry on the team bus. Merino prefers what he calls the sobremesa, long conversations that stretch out after a meal with no rush to leave the table, “chatting about life, our kids, the future, holidays.” A pre-final ritual from the squad that won in South Africa in 2010, hot chocolate and croissants shared the night before the final, has been retired this time around.

“I think the nutritionists killed that one for us,” Merino said, laughing about the tradition he and his teammates used to copy from senior players when he was coming through the youth ranks.

Facing Messi, and a Photo He Thought Was Fake

Sunday’s final pits Spain against Messi’s Argentina, and Merino against a growing storyline built around Messi and Spain’s teenage forward, Lamine Yamal, built in part on an old photo of the two together that resurfaced this tournament.

“The first time I saw it, I thought it was AI, that it wasn’t even real,” Merino said. “It is funny how life works sometimes: it has these special situations that you think are scripted by someone but it is just the coincidence of life. It’s unbelievable that two of the best to have played the game, hopefully Lamine in the future will be one of those, share a picture like that. It’s old, from a couple of years ago now, so I think all the jokes have been done. But it’s incredible.”

He spoke about Messi with plain respect. “What can I say about Messi? Just see the way he’s playing, how good he is at 39. I don’t know if this will be his last game, his last final. But it’s an incredible challenge to play against him. It will be an intense game, which it has to be: it’s a World Cup final. There will be contact, intense duels, but that’s why you have a referee: to control that. We have to ensure the ball moves fast. The less time it spends with each of us, the less chance they have of making fouls.”

Merino closed by reflecting on watching Spain’s 2010 champions as a kid, and now being watched himself. “I remember how it felt to watch that generation make history,” he said. “You think about that. You think about being a kid back then, watching players who were idols for me and my teammates. You think about how you dreamed of living that one day, how watching them motivated you. And then you think that you’re the ones representing your country now, you’re the ones this new generation of kids are watching, and it’s something magical.”

Merino spent February wondering whether a World Cup was still possible. Sunday in New Jersey gives him the answer.