Spain are the 14th Top 10 ranked team since 1970 to lose their opening group match. The bad news for them is that only one of those teams (Germany 1982) have won the group and of the six teams who managed to qualify (46%) two did so in third place which means that only 4/13 have finished in the current qualifying positions. Should Spain qualify but fail to win the group, they are likely to meet Brazil in the next round.

Spain were in a similar position 12 years ago when they lost to Nigeria and then drew their second group match but a win against Bulgaria in the final match wasn’t sufficient to qualify. Eight years ago, France, Croatia and Portugal all failed after losing their opener, even though Portugal and Croatia won their second group matches. If Spain win their other two group matches, they will join Germany and Argentina (both in 1982) as the only teams of the 14 to do so.

Of the six teams that did qualify, three went out in the second group stage (none won their first match of that stage and two lost); England lost in the quarter-finals in 1986; but Argentina (1990) and Italy (1994) both finished as runners-up.

Of the 13 teams who defeated these teams, only two failed to qualify and one of those was Algeria because of the notorious fix up between Austria and Germany in 1982. Of the 11 teams that did qualify, seven won their group (two of them in 1990 were in the same group).

Currently Spain can be laid at 3.4 to win the group and 1.38 to qualify. Switzerland are 2.3 to win the group.