World Cup Round of 16: Portugal 0 Spain 1 (Mikel Merino 91)Farewell, then Cristiano Ronaldo. Spain delivered a late, late dagger to Portugal’s improbable dream of chasing World Cup glory with their 41-year-old leading the front line.Mikel Merino finally unlocked Portugal’s hard-pressed last line in stoppage time after a quick, clever pass from Ferran Torres punished a second of mental lethargy. That was it. The Spanish are now unbeaten in 35 games and have six consecutive clean sheets. Their neighbours tested that meanness here: even in the 98th minute, the diminutive Bernardo Silva somehow got his head to a last-ditch cross and as the sands of time elapsed, Neves headed on a floating ball which Portugal’s number 7 jersey arrived to collect just a second too late. It’s a merciless game. Roberto Martinez had decided to stick with Ronaldo for the entirety of the 90 minutes and so Portugal exit having left his attacking alternative, Goncalo Ramos, in the shadows.A parallel narrative had hardened into trenchant debate as Ronaldo embarked on his twilight summer adventure of the United States. There is the fastidious eye of critical professional perspective, which regards his lingering, oxygen-sucking profile on the international stage with the contempt reserved for the old man who won’t quit the nightclub. The argument is that Ronaldo is a hindrance, at best, or culpable of overshadowing and thwarting the evolution of his younger team-mates, and a squad glittering with talent, at worst. A study of chiselled inertia upfront, too often arriving at the right spot a second too late. There is also the sense, even for Ronaldo loyalists, that through these increasingly peripheral performances, high on both personal theatrics and frustration, he is mocked by the ghost of his absurdly gifted younger self who made his finals debut in Germany back in 2006 and joined Manchester United almost a quarter of a century ago. He belongs to a different era. “He came as a young lad,” Peter Schmeichel, one of the many ex-Premier League stalwarts on media duty on US coverage reminisced of his arrival at Old Trafford.“He was full of tricks and didn’t really know how to deal with that and so the first year all the stupidness in his game came out and the effectiveness, and the art, and the beauty. All of that came out on the pitch. But he also gave Manchester United four incredible years off the pitch – changed the dressingroom; how players began to think, sleep, eat. The impact he had on that dressingroom was very much like Cantona’s back in the 90s.”Ronaldo and Spain's goalkeeper Unai Simon look at the ball after a missed chance during the match. Photograph: Aric Becker/AFP via Getty So there was that nostalgia. And then there is the place Ronaldo holds among Portugal’s general football fans. It was something to see outside Dallas stadium; parades of red 7 jerseys walking up in the boulevard towards Troy Aikman’s old playground. It was difficult to spot a fan wearing the shirt of any other Portuguese player. For Portugal fans, this was a pilgrimage containing the consolation that if Portugal are downed by their neighbours and bitter rivals, then at least they witnessed CR7 take his final World Cup finals bow, in the flesh, at the age of 41. And that may have explained the number of young families attending here for the occasion.From the first minute, Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon extended his World Cup record of 519 minutes and counting without conceding: over those five games, he was required to make just seven saves. If Ronaldo was to add to his 146 goals, in all competitions, and to the 11 he has bagged in tournament finals, it would take something special and outrageous. So, for better or worse, there he was. And it was impossible not to admire the combination of human impulses that has him out there – the ego but also the desire and the insane conditioning it must take to play at this level, in 36 degrees of Texan July heat, on the floor of this coliseum.Mikel Merino scores for Spain. Photograph: Lars Baron/Getty Images Spain seemed determined not to attempt a goal that didn’t involve at least one aesthetic, measured final pass to split the Portuguese centre-half pairing. They should have scored after just eight minutes when three first touch passes – Laporte, Pedro and Olmo – cut through the entire Portuguese outfield, leaving Oyarzabal with just Diego Costa to beat: he guided his shot to the right of the goal. Costa then executed a brilliant double save in the 16th minute, parrying Lamine Yamal’s curled left foot effort and then recovering to get fingertips to Álex Baena’s follow-up. In between those chances, Ronaldo, profiting on a Pedri dispossession, offered a step-over and a right foot strike which didn’t much trouble Simon but drew heartened applause for the legions of fans willing, praying, believing that they might witness a sporting miracle here.It was a nervy cautious first half broken by sequences of mesmeric passing play. Against Austria, Spain completed 570 passes out of 629 attempted: they had to make do with less of possession here but still moved Portugal’s outfield nine around with imperious authority and purpose, leaving Ronaldo islanded around the half way line. But for all that, it was Portugal who came closest to breaking the tension when Nuno Mendes shocked the Spaniards with a thumping shot which clipped both Pedro Porro and the crossbar in the 41st minute. It was a warning.Mendes had also coped with subduing the exuberant talents of Yamal so the sight of his departure with a heavy limp, in the 55th minute, had big implications for an encounter that was settling into a slow-burning war of nerves and poise. Scoreless on the hour but with Spain dominating territory, Roberto Martinez gambled a little, swapping the defensive cover Joao Felix had provided for Yamal for the attacking potency of his left-back replacement, Rafael Leão. The bigger question for the Portugal coach was when, or if, he would collar Ronaldo. He persisted and the afternoon was moving inexorably to the slow grind of extra time when Spain struck with devastating authority. No country for old men, and all that. World Cup Wallchart