Chance creation
Playmaking output: assists, key passes, and custom chance-creation signals.
Liga Profesional Argentina · Defender · #38 · Argentina · 19 yrs
J. Merino is a defender. J. Merino is a Argentine international, 19 years old, defender. J. Merino wears shirt number 38. J. Merino was born in Avellaneda, Argentina on 2006-05-22. J. Merino is 178 cm tall and weighs 68 kg. J. Merino's Sportra profile tracks season statistics across Liga Profesional Argentina, CONMEBOL Sudamericana. J. Merino's page brings together career clubs, trophies, injury history, multi-competition stats, and related news headlines. On Sportra you can explore J. Merino season statistics, transfer history, trophies, injury updates, and related news across every competition tracked in the profile.
Defender · #38
| Date | Type | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-01 | Raise |  Racing Club RAC | Racing Club RAC |
Season intelligence
Profile as Defender: balanced output without a single dominant trait. Archetype: Balanced contributor.
Scaled 0–99 from season output — map to fantasy, comparisons, or scouting cards.
Per-90 rates, efficiency ratios, and Sportra indices from season totals.
Playmaking output: assists, key passes, and custom chance-creation signals.
Every tracked category for this league and season, grouped by Sportra.
Tom Heaton is backing Manchester United team-mate Senne Lammens to emerge as a stronger character from his World Cup disappointment. Lammens had been back-up to Thibaut Courtois throughout the tournament until the veteran Belgium goalkeeper was injured 19 minutes from the end of the quarter-final against Spain. The 24-year-old had barely touched the ball before he spilled Pau Cubarsi's shot late in the game, which allowed Arsenal's Mikel Merino to steer home and give Spain a 2-1 victory.
Mikel Merino, Martin Zubimendi and David Raya are now Premier League winners and champions of the world having won the 2026 World Cup with Spain. Arsenal's super-sub Merino came on for Dani Olmo in the 75th minute as Spain looked to break the deadlock against a very well-organised Argentina.
Spain face Argentina in the 2026 World Cup final, and Pedri will begin the match on the bench. Spain are one win away from their second World Cup title as they face Argentina, and Luis de la Fuente is sticking with the same midfield blueprint that carried the team past France in the semifinals, meaning Pedri will once again begin the game on the bench. De la Fuente has settled on Fabian Ruiz alongside Rodri in a double pivot, a pairing that has given Spain more control and physical presence through the middle of the park in the tournament’s biggest matches. Ahead of that duo, De la Fuente has built his attack around Lamine Yamal, Dani Olmo and Alex Baena operating behind Mikel Oyarzabal, who leads the team in scoring with five goals. The setup underlines just how deep De la Fuente’s midfield options have become. Even a player of Pedri‘s caliber, one the coach has repeatedly praised as among the best in the world, cannot force his way back into a starting role that has been working for Spain when it matters most. Pedri during Spain’s game vs Portugal. (Getty Images) How Pedri’s role faded as the tournament progressed Pedri was a fixture in Spain’s starting lineup for the first five matches of the World Cup, anchoring the midfield through the group stage and into the knockout rounds. That run included the Round of 16 win over Portugal, a game Spain needed a stoppage-time Mikel Merino goal to escape after struggling to create clear chances, with Pedri’s performance among those that failed to stand out. That flat display opened the door for Fabian Ruiz, who took his opportunity in the quarterfinal against Belgium, scoring the opener in a 2-1 win that sent Spain into the semifinals. Ruiz kept his place for the last four against France, starting once again as Spain booked their spot in the final, and Pedri has yet to reclaim the role he held for most of the tournament.
It's European versus world champions in Sunday's World Cup final and Arsenal have three players in Luis de la Fuente's Spain side who face Argentina live on the BBC from 19:00 BST. Mikel Merino has been dubbed the World Cup 'super sub' after scoring two last-minute winners in the knockout stages to eliminate Portugal and Belgium from the competition. At this tournament, he has become the first player in World Cup history to score the winning goal in two different knockout-stage matches as a substitute, and also the first Spanish player to score two winning goals after the 80th minute at the World Cup.
The Arsenal midfielder talks about how Luis de la Fuente has created a team built on respect and how they plan to beat Argentina in the World Cup finalThe night before the biggest day of their lives, the Spain players who were about to win the 2010 World Cup gathered in the Da Vinci Hotel in Sandton, just north of Johannesburg, drank hot chocolate, ate chocolate croissants and talked. The night before the biggest day of their lives, the Spain players seeking to emulate them 16 years later will gather in the MC Montclair in New Jersey and talk too, but there won’t be any chocolate this time. Some rituals are not to be repeated.“I think the nutritionists killed that one for us!” Mikel Merino says, hopping off the bus, freshly tuned up for the final, and heading into a tactics room at the Melanie Lane training ground, where Spain’s penultimate day of preparation is about to begin. “We used to do the Cola Cao and cakes in the under-19s and under-21s, copying the seniors, but not any more. Everyone has their own routine, but the main thing is to normalise it all: just another game, doing something we know how to do, that we’ve done since we were five years old and that we love. Treat it like something to be enjoyed, another day in our lives.” Continue reading...
Fairytale goodbyes are a rarity in football. Belgium's 2-1 defeat by Spain in the quarter-finals of the World Cup is likely to have marked the final bow of the four remaining members of the Red Devils' golden generation. Thibaut Courtois, Romelu Lukaku, Kevin de Bruyne and Axel Witsel have been mainstays of the national team since the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, but their final chance of winning football's biggest prize ended with a mistake from one of their successors.
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