Georgia vs Spain preview: La Roja poised to book 2026 World Cup place in penultimate qualifying outing | OneFootball

Spain will attempt to make it five wins from as many matches on Saturday when they head to the Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena to face Georgia.

The reigning European champions cruised to a 4-0 victory over Bulgaria last time out, while their upcoming opponents suffered a 4-1 defeat against Turkey.

Spain preview

After suffering an agonising penalty shootout defeat to Portugal in June’s Nations League final, Spain have won four games to put themselves in pole position for a 13th straight World Cup tournament.

Luis De La Fuente’s men have scored a whopping 15 goals during that span, while conceding none.

La Roja’s form over the last two years has made them one of the favourites to go all the way in next year’s World Cup, where they will be aiming to end a 16-year wait for global supremacy.

Currently three points clear of Turkey at the top of Group E, Spain could potentially confirm their place in the group stages of football’s biggest event with a win on Thursday.

However, much of that is subject to Turkey’s result against Bulgaria in the other group fixture.

Having come out on top in each of the last six and eight of the previous nine encounters against Georgia, Spain have enjoyed the better of this fixture more often than not, and it is hard to see that stopping here.

Georgia preview

Georgia were three goals down 52 minutes into their opening qualifier against Turkey before managing to pull two back in the final half hour to keep the scoreline respectable.

A 3-0 triumph against Bulgaria in their subsequent outing meant that Georgia ended the September international break with five unanswered goals.

However, October’s matches against Spain and Turkey ended in 2-0 and 4-1 defeats respectively.

Six points shy of Turkey in the race for second place with two games to go, Thursday’s hosts still have a slim chance of securing a play-off berth, but will need results elsewhere to go their way.

Team news

Lamine Yamal is unavailable to play any after he was recently released from the squad due to an invasive radiofrequency procedure.

Nico Williams also misses out through injury, meaning Spain will be without both of their first-choice wingers.

Mikel Merino is Spain’s leading scorer in the qualifiers (6) and will be looking to deliver the goods once again.

Otar Kakabadze and Georges Mikautadze were part of the initial Georgia squad but have since been replaced by Shota Nonikashvili and Giorgi Kvilitaia due to injury concerns.

Fresh from his first league goal of the season, Paris Saint-Germain attacker Khvicha Kvaratskhelia will aim to add to his two qualifying strikes, which came in the first two matches.

Georgia Predicted XI (4-3-3): Mamardashvili; Gocholeishvili, Lochoshvili, Goglichidze, Azarovi; Mekvabishvili, Kiteishvili, Kochorashvili; Kvaratskhelia, Zivzivadze, Davitashvili.

Spain Predicted XI (4-2-3-1): Simon; Porro, Laporte, Huijsen, Cucurella; Barrios, Zubimendi; Torres, Merino, Pino; Oyarzabal.