Spain 2-0 France: My Thoughts, and the Final Ahead
What the four semifinalists brought
It’s easy to say this looking back, but each of the four teams arrived at the semifinals with a clear identity, something they’d already shown at this World Cup and tried to replicate.
France came with the same strategy as always: massive confidence, which is fair given their attacking quality, and a plan that boils down to “eventually one of our ridiculously talented forwards will get a chance and score it.” No real plan beyond that, just wing it.
Spain came with unity. Control the game, nullify the opposition, play compact solid football through midfield. Not relying on individual brilliance to win, relying on the team as a unit, with a plan that all eleven players implement. The word is composure.
England came with something similar to their Mexico game: composure to get in front, then hang on and suffer. I’m not sure how intentional that second part was, but looking back that’s what happened.
Argentina came with aggression, as they always do. Show the opposition they’re ready for a fight, physically above all, and then do the thing they’ve done all tournament: get themselves into a hard position and thrive under the pressure.
Spain suffocated France
Spain vs France is a classic Euros matchup, the two biggest European teams of recent years and the two best teams at this World Cup so far. And Spain surprised everyone with how completely they controlled it.
Not domination in the sense of creating loads of chances. They controlled the midfield, kept the ball, and never let France expand. Whenever they had possession they looked good, and defensively they went to work on Olise, who has been creating so much for France this tournament. They basically overcrowded the midfield around him and never let him play a dangerous pass. Whenever Mbappe or Dembele got the ball, they were crowded out and tackled easily.
Now, it’s hard to tell whether France’s attackers all just had an off day. But that’s exactly the point: with the amount of talent France have, the odds of all of them having a bad day at the same time are tiny. So the reasonable conclusion is that Spain caused it tactically.
The Yamal penalty: cheeky, smart, a football technicality
Spain’s opener came from exploiting Lucas Digne, who had a poor game. Digne had a bad first touch and was about to clear the ball when Lamine Yamal, who had been walking a few feet away while Digne checked his mirrors, suddenly sprinted and got there a split second first. Digne caught him. Penalty, right at the edge of the box.
Let’s be honest about what happened. Yamal wasn’t trying to control that ball and create a chance. He wasn’t trying to stay on his feet. He dived into it knowing that if he got a touch first, the contact was coming. He was trying to win a penalty, and he did. It’s unfortunate for France to concede a penalty from something like that, an accidental foul in an awkward spot where a few feet the other way makes it a free kick and nothing more. But Yamal knew exactly what he was doing. A bit cheeky, really smart, a pure football technicality. Oyarzabal buried it in the 22nd minute, moments before the hydration break.
The second came just before the hour, and it was a lovely team move: a good Olmo situation with the ball played out to the right back, Porro, who had a really good game, playing a one-two with Olmo and burying the return to make it 2-0. Olmo was really inspired all game, producing spectacular but very efficient passes, like that assist and a backheel in the first half.
France’s inadaptability
France’s response told you everything about their ceiling. Their big move was bringing on Cherki for Olise, late, which is pure man-for-man thinking: this world-class player is having a bad day, so here’s a similar world-class player, hope he has a good day.
No chaos introduced. No formation change. No tactical shake-up of any kind. Just trust the attackers to figure it out, which has been France’s approach for years. And it works most of the time. It worked against Norway, against Senegal, against Morocco, all genuinely good teams. But Spain are superior to all of them, and against a team with an actual plan, executed with actual composure, winging it wasn’t enough. It’s easy to say after the game, but if any team was going to beat France, it was Spain. I didn’t see it coming. I don’t think most people did.
The performers
The Spanish full backs were superb. Porro and Cucurella were always first to the ball, always involved. Rodri controlled the game everywhere; for a central midfielder to have that big a presence on a match means he dictated the tempo completely, and he was the man who made the difference. Dani Olmo comprehensively won the battle with his opposite number. Yamal finally showed up with a few glimpses that mattered. And Spain kept producing these sequences of passes in attack that looked properly rehearsed, which is exactly what France lacked. In a tactical battle like this, that mattered a lot.
A club, not a country
Spain look like a club team, not a national team, and everything about how they’re built points that way. The whole thing is basically built on the Barcelona structure.
Look at the manager. De la Fuente has been inside the federation ecosystem for something like 13 years: the under-21s, the age groups below that, and now the senior side. He’s been this generation’s manager their whole careers.
Then look at the goalkeeper call. Spain arguably have the best keeper in the world in Raya. He’s grown so much under Arteta, went from Brighton to Arsenal and grew into that role, won the Premier League this season, and Arsenal were a penalty shootout against PSG away from being the best team in Europe. And Spain bench him for Unai Simon, the Athletic Bilbao keeper. By any individual measure, Raya is the better goalkeeper. But Simon is their guy, the one who grew up with this team, and they’ve conceded once all World Cup partly thanks to him. It’s basically saying, as a wealthy club: we could afford the best keeper in the world, and we don’t want him. That’s how much they value cohesion over paper quality.
The weird thing: this was one of their easiest games
Here’s a mad thought: Spain struggled more against far worse teams. Apart from the Saudi Arabia game, which they absolutely dominated and which gave us a glimpse of their attacking power, and the Austria game, which they also smashed, their run was full of grinds. They drew with Cape Verde. They beat Uruguay 1-0 without ever really forcing it. They beat Portugal 1-0 with a last-minute goal in a game heading to extra time. Against Belgium they conceded the only goal they’ve given away all tournament and won thanks to a keeper mistake.
And then the France game, against the best attack in the tournament, was one of their more comfortable wins. That it sits closer to the Austria game than the Portugal one tells you how much they showed up. This is a team for the big stage.
Shadows of 2010
At 1-0 up, I kept thinking: this reminds me of the 2010 team. Always in control, winning games 1-0, scraping the results while dominating the play. That’s the energy, except this team is a bit more expansive on top of it.
And that comparison is where it gets really impressive. That generation: Xavi, Iniesta, Villa, Puyol, Casillas, Pique. I can name that entire team off the top of my head, which tells you what kind of generation it was. These current players are nowhere near that on paper. And yet they’ve gone back-to-back Euros and now a World Cup final, and honestly they’re winning their games with more ease than that legendary team won theirs 16 years ago. To reach performances that were unprecedented then, with a squad of this profile, is absolutely insane.
Semifinal verdicts
The biggest disappointment of the four was France, by far. Both England and Argentina played better than them across these two semifinals. They looked like deserving finalists right up until they had to play one of these games, and then they simply didn’t show up.
Spain are the most deserving finalists and go in as favourites. Not massive favourites, but big enough. I’ll admit my own flip on this: before the game I was hoping Spain would win so that England or Argentina would get the easier final. Ninety minutes later I was thinking, God no, I don’t want to face this Spain in a final. They radiate something now. De la Fuente said it himself after the game: everyone thought France were an incredible team, but they faced the best team on the planet. That’s the aura they’ve got.
The final: control vs chaos
So we get Spain against Argentina. The European champions against the World Cup and Copa America champions. This is the Finalissima we were robbed of when the March edition got cancelled, now replayed as an actual World Cup final. I can’t remember the last time these two met, and they’ve been the two dominant footballing nations of recent memory whose golden generations somehow kept missing each other.
Argentina haven’t lost a game since the Saudi Arabia fluke four years ago. They won the Copa America twice, they’ve beaten France, England, Brazil, everyone. They just show up and do whatever the game requires. And they have this quality where winning it already hasn’t made them complacent at all. It looked like complacency when Egypt had them on the ropes, when Switzerland took their momentum, when England scored, but it never actually was. They’re a defending beast waiting to be poked, and once you poke them, they unleash football that doesn’t make sense.
So the question of the final is simple: can Spain’s control block Argentina’s chaos? Spain will come prepared, they’ll try to control the game the way they controlled France, and they were good enough to stop the best attack in the tournament. But nobody has yet survived one of Argentina’s spells. If any team on the planet can block that expansive, passionate surge, it’s Spain. Whether they actually can, we find out Sunday.
A final you’ll watch with love
One more thing about the dynamic. England vs Argentina came loaded with genuine beef. This one won’t be. Messi spent most of his career in Spain, they share a language, and there’s the famous connection with Yamal, the kid Messi was photographed bathing as a baby, who’s now his heir on the other side of a World Cup final. There will be rivalry, and Argentina will bring the exact same aggression, but it’ll be a healthy rivalry, full of respect. You won’t watch this final with hate, you’ll watch it with love.
We’ve seen Scaloni with tears in his eyes every time the cameras find him. We’ve seen how emotionally available this Argentina squad is, how visible the weight they carry for their country is. Imagine the scenes in Buenos Aires. And on the other side, a Spain team with the chemistry of a club side and the calm of a team that believes it’s the best on the planet.
And one delicious detail to finish on. Argentina’s anthem, the one they sing like their lives depend on it, is an 1813 independence song about breaking free from Spain. The original lyrics even had a verse about tearing apart “the arrogant Iberian lion.” On Sunday, they’ll scream it at the top of their lungs, and then play Spain for the World Cup.
I can’t wait for this one.
If you want the full story of the other semifinal, Tuchel’s gamble and how Argentina broke England again, I’ve written a separate piece on it: England 1-2 Argentina: My Thoughts.