France had scored 17 goals in six games coming into this semifinal. Mbappé was the tournament’s standout forward, Dembélé had been unplayable in patches, and Olise had been doing things in midfield that nobody seemed to have an answer for. Going into the match the bet markets had France as slight favourites at around -115, Spain at +200, and on paper that made some sense. What actually happened at Dallas Stadium on July 14th made considerably less sense if you had backed France, and made perfect sense if you had been paying attention to Spain’s defensive numbers all tournament. Final score: Spain 2-0 France. Expected goals: Spain 2.1, France 0.26. It was not close.
BoyleSports and every other platform running markets on this one got a lesson in what happens when you weigh a team’s attacking output too heavily and underweight their opponents’ ability to switch that attack off entirely. Spain conceded one goal in seven games at this World Cup. One. The Belgium goal in the quarters. Before and after that, nothing. France’s 17 goals meant very little once they encountered a team that had spent the tournament building the most suffocating defensive structure in international football.
What Spain Actually Did to France
They pressed. Not the kind of press that looks good in theory and falls apart under quality, but the real thing, relentless and organised from the first whistle. Dani Olmo and whoever rotated alongside him cut the lanes into Mbappé constantly. Kylian Mbappé operates on time and space. Spain gave him neither. By the time France worked the ball forward, Laporte and Le Normand had already reorganised, and France spent the entire match being forced into decisions they did not want to make in areas they did not want to make them.
Lamine Yamal who turned 19 the day before this match, drew the foul from Digne in the 22nd minute that gave Spain the penalty. Oyarzabal buried it calmly. Then in the 58th minute Pedro Porro arrived late into the box on the end of a give-and-go with Olmo that France’s backline simply failed to track. 2-0. Both goals are clinical. Neither is fortunate. France had three shots on target across the whole game, which for a team with their attacking quality is not a failure of effort but a reflection of how completely Spain controlled where the ball could and could not go.
The Yamal Situation
This version of Spain gets talked about primarily as a defensive unit which undersells what they have going forward. Yamal was a nightmare for France’s left side all night. He did not score, was denied by the offside flag for what would have been a third, but he pulled so much defensive attention from France that it created the spaces Porro, Olmo and Oyarzabal exploited. The age thing has been mentioned so many times it has almost stopped landing, but a 19-year-old who turned 19 the day before a World Cup semifinal and spent that semifinal making Lucas Digne’s evening a misery is still a remarkable thing to watch regardless of how normalised it has become.
Spain beat Portugal in the last 16, Belgium in the quarters, France in the semi. The only three European nations with a realistic claim to being better than them at this tournament and they beat all three, without particularly breaking sweat in any of the three games.
Three in a Row Against France
What makes the 2-0 particularly satisfying for Spanish fans is the sequence it completes. Euro 2024 semifinal in Munich: Spain 2-1 France, Yamal equalising with one of the goals of the tournament, Olmo winning it. Nations League semifinal in Stuttgart in June 2025: Spain 5-4 France in a genuinely wild match. And now 2-0 in Dallas, comfortable and controlled. Three knockout matches against France in major tournaments. Three Spain wins. Deschamps said afterwards that Spain were superior in terms of control and that France could not play their game. He was right on both counts. France’s attacking system requires a certain kind of opponent. Spain was not that opponent.
De la Fuente has built something here that goes beyond individual talent. The collective organisation is what makes Spain difficult to play against, not just the names in the team. When Yamal is also in the team, the combination is formidable. The xG differential against France, 2.1 to 0.26, probably understates the gap in control. Spain did not just win. They made one of the best attacking sides in the world look ordinary for 90 minutes, and that is a harder thing to do than the scoreline suggests.
