Spain took a giant leap to securing Nations League quarter-final progression after Tuesday s comfortable 3-0 victory over Serbia.
Luis de la Fuente s side will need just a point from their last two games in the competition next month after a routine win in Cordoba.
Aymeric Laporte opened the scoring after just five minutes, heading into the far corner after a well-worked corner routine allowed Pedro Porro space to deliver.
Mikel Merino s header from Alex Baena s cross was denied by the post soon after, before Spain missed a glorious chance to extend their lead after the interval.
Porro s vicious shot was adjudged to have been handled by Veljko Birmancevic, but Alvaro Morata blazed over with a disappointing 54th-minute penalty.
Captain Morata made amends just 11 minutes later, however, finishing with ease into the bottom corner after Fabian Ruiz profited on Serbia s slack attempts to play out from defence.
Further misery followed for Serbia as Strahinja Pavlovic s last-man challenge on Mikel Oyarzabal was upgraded to a red card following a VAR review, before Baena curled the resulting free-kick past Predrag Rajkovic to seal another Roja win.
El capitán
— UEFA EURO 2024 (@EURO2024)
Data Debrief: Unbeaten run continues for rampant Roja
De la Fuente masterminded Spain s Euro 2024 triumph, with the best team deservedly triumphing at the tournament in Germany, but La Roja s impressive run started well before that.
Spain are now unbeaten in their last 19 matches across all competitions (W17 D2), excluding friendlies, their best such streak since a 29-game run between June 2010 and June 2013 (W24 D5).
This was a typically dominant performance from the hosts, who accumulated 2.9 expected goals (xG) compared to Serbia s meagre 0.37, as the away side struggled throughout.
