Our number 23 earned his 25th cap, slotting back into the right back spot he made his own during the World Cup after missing the previous window of international games with the hamstring injury he picked up against Aston Villa in September.
La Roja maintained their three-point lead over England in Group 3 of Nations League A with a win in Prague, meaning that they need just a point to secure the top spot in the group in this weekend’s final round of games.
Pedro, who played all but six minutes of the knockout stages on their way to becoming world champions in New York this summer, played 76 minutes before being replaced by Marc Pubill.
Our goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky was an unused substitute for the hosts in Prague, while the visitors’ two goals came from a first-half Alex Baena penalty and a stoppage-time strike from substitute Pubill.
Next up for Luis de la Fuente’s Spain is a showdown to be the Group 3 winner with Thomas Tuchel’s England on 17 November. Both teams have already qualified for the last eight of the competition, but the winner of the group will be one of four seeds with home advantage in the quarter-finals.
England secured their place in the next round with a 2-1 win over Croatia at Wembley, where our Academy graduate Harry Kane became their all-time appearance record-holder. Harry marked the occasion by scoring the winning goal from the penalty spot, his 92nd in his 126 caps for the Three Lions.
Elsewhere, there were important home wins for both Sandro Tonali’s Italy and Mohammed Kudus’ Ghana.
Italy made it four wins in five since Roberto Mancini returned to the fold, beating France 3-1 at the San Siro, which put them top of Nations League A Group 1 with one game to go.
Sandro played the full 90 minutes in his return to the stadium that he called home for three seasons while playing for Milan, before his move to Newcastle in 2023.
Michael Olise opened the scoring for the visitors, but a double from Francisco Pio Esposito, either side of a left-footed strike by Davide Frattesi, saw Gli Azzurri march closer to the quarter-finals of the competition.
They head into the final game ahead of Zinedine Zidane’s France on goal difference and one point ahead of Belgium, who sit in third place.
Earlier in the day, Ghana boosted their hopes of making next summer’s Africa Cup of Nations finals by beating Somalia 2-0 to secure the first win of their qualifying campaign.
Mo provided the assist for Felix Afena-Gyan’s strike that wrapped up the three points for the Black Stars, after Jonas Adjetey’s opener in first-half stoppage time.
The attacker, who operated in the number 10 position for this game, was influential in attack.
He created five chances in total for the side currently managed by the head coach of their Women’s team, Kim Björkegren, as they look to replace Carlos Queiroz, which was the most by any player.
The win stops a run of just one victory in 13 months for Ghana, who now sit only three points behind The Gambia in the second qualification spot in Group C.
Next up for Mo and his teammates is the return fixture against Somalia (16 November), while Sandro’s Italy face Belgium (17 November) in their final Nations League match, the only country to beat Mancini’s team since his return.
Guglielmo Vicario, who is currently on loan at Juventus, was an unused substitute for Italy, while Pape Matar Sarr, who is also on loan in Turin, provided an assist as a second-half substitute as Senegal beat Sudan in their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.