This will be the fifth meeting between Spain and Germany at the Fifa World Cup, the joint-most that Spain have faced any side at the competition (also 5 v Brazil). They failed to win any of their first three against Germany (D1 L2) but won the most recent encounter 1-0 in the 2010 semifinal en route to lifting the trophy.
Germany have won just one of their last seven meetings with Spain in all competitions (D2 L4), winning 1-0 in a friendly match in November 2014. They’ve not won a competitive meeting with Spain since EURO 1988 (2-0), drawing two and losing three since then.
Germany have lost three of their last four World Cup games, as many as they had in their previous 21. They've lost two in a row in the competition for just the third time (also in 1958 and 1982), and have never lost three consecutive World Cup games before.
Spain won their opening game of the 2022 World Cup against Costa Rica 7-0, their biggest ever win in the finals. On only three previous World Cup editions have Spain won both of their opening two matches: 1950, 2002 and 2006.
Germany have lost their opening group stage game in both 2018 and 2022, having lost their first game in just one of their previous 18 appearances in the World Cup. They've never lost consecutive group stage games in the same edition of the competition before.
Spain have scored 16 penalties at the World Cup, the most of any nation in the history of the competition (excl. shootouts). However, Germany haven’t conceded a penalty goal in normal time of a World Cup match since 1990 against Netherlands, with this an ongoing run of 45 matches at the tournament without conceding from the spot outside of shootouts.
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Germany's 2-1 defeat to Japan on MD1 ended a run of 29 consecutive World Cup games without defeat in which they'd scored at least one goal (W25 D4), with their last such loss also being a 2-1 defeat having opened the scoring against Bulgaria in the 1994 quarterfinal.
In their 7-0 win over Costa Rica last time out, Spain recorded a possession figure of 81.9 per cent, setting a new record since Opta have this data available in the World Cup (from 1966), surpassing Argentina’s 80.3 per cent against Greece in 2010.
Spain’s 7-0 win over Costa Rica last time out saw six different goalscorers, the most the nation have had in a single World Cup match. The youngest of those was Gavi, who at 18 years and 110 days old, was the third-youngest ever World Cup goalscorer, after only Manuel Rosas in 1930 (18y 93d) and Pelé in 1958 (17y 239d).
Ilkay Gündogan has scored nine goals in 22 appearances for Germany since the start of 2021, after scoring eight goals in 42 games for the national side between 2011 and 2020. He's looking to become the first player to score in both of Germany's first two games at a World Cup since Miroslav Klose in 2002.
