Arlington, 8pm tonight, and the two best teams at this World Cup finally run into each other. France have scored 16 goals and conceded two. Spain have conceded one. Whoever comes out of Dallas walks into Sunday’s final at MetLife as the side nobody in the tournament wants to play. English readers will watch this as a scouting exercise, and they have not earned the right to.
France have not conceded since the group stage
Six matches, six wins, top of Group I, and both of the goals they have shipped came before the knockouts. Sweden were beaten 3–0. Paraguay dug in and lost 1–0 anyway. Morocco, the side that had made itself a problem for everyone, were seen off 2–0 in Boston without France’s goal being seriously threatened. Mbappé and Dembélé scored the goals that sent Les Bleus into the semi-finals looking like world champions, and the performance was more convincing than the scoreline.
Kylian Mbappé has eight goals and three assists in six games. He is on 20 career World Cup goals, one short of Lionel Messi’s all-time 21, and he can go level with Messi about 24 hours before Messi himself is next on the pitch. He took a heavy knock on his right ankle from Issa Diop against Morocco and came off on 77 minutes with ice strapped to it. He told reporters afterwards that he was fine, and everything from the French camp since suggests he starts.
The reason Spain cannot simply build a game plan around him is Ousmane Dembélé, five goals and two assists, and Michael Olise, who has set up five. Double up on the captain and there are two more waiting. Didier Deschamps takes charge of his 26th World Cup match tonight, more than any manager in the tournament’s history, and after 14 years he is leaving when this is over. Aurélien Tchouaméni remains a doubt after a muscle problem picked up in training on 3 July, though Manu Koné has done enough that Deschamps may not want him back anyway.
Spain’s problem is not their defence
One goal conceded in six matches. Charles De Ketelaere got it for Belgium in the quarter-final and it was the first time anyone had beaten Unai Simón all summer. Spain are unbeaten in 36, penalty shootouts aside, one short of the record Argentina set between 2019 and 2022. They have won seven of the last 10 against France, and the two most recent were the 2–1 in the Euro 2024 semi-final and that absurd 5–4 in last year’s Nations League final.
So the case for Spain writes itself, and it is also slightly dishonest, because the forwards have been poor. They opened the tournament with a 0–0 against Cape Verde and looked like nothing. Lamine Yamal, who turns 19 today and who has spent the week telling France they should be afraid, has one goal contribution in the entire competition. Nico Williams has been unavailable with a groin problem since the Uruguay game.
What has actually carried them is Mikel Merino coming off the bench. He scored the winner against Portugal in the last 16. He scored the winner against Belgium in the quarter-final, in stoppage time, and became the first player in World Cup history to settle two knockout ties as a substitute. That is a compliment to Merino and it is an indictment of everyone in front of him.
Spain are one win from a final having never once played well for 90 minutes. Read that as terrifying, or read it as a bill that arrives tonight against the one team good enough to present it.
Wednesday in Atlanta comes first
None of this is England’s business yet. Thomas Tuchel’s squad fly to Atlanta to face Argentina on Wednesday at 8pm on BBC One, the first meeting between the countries since David Beckham’s penalty in Sapporo in 2002, and Argentina are the reigning world champions who have not dropped a point since they arrived. Messi has eight goals and shares top spot in the Golden Boot race with Mbappé. He has never played against England. Both semi-finals are free to watch in the UK, and there is every knockout result and reaction from the tournament so far to catch up on before Sunday.
England got here by beating Norway 2–1 in extra time in Miami, with Jude Bellingham scoring both. Bellingham and Harry Kane are on six goals each, which is as many as any Englishman has managed at a single World Cup. It is also worth saying that England have won only two of their six matches by more than one goal, and neither of those came in the knockout rounds. This has been a tournament of getting through, not a tournament of authority. The more immediate worry is that Tuchel’s right-back problem could decide the semi-final long before anyone in the England camp is entitled to think about Dallas.
So which one do England want
The instinct is Spain, on the grounds that France have Mbappé and an unbroken clean sheet in the knockouts. The instinct is wrong.
France’s flaw is real and it is at full-back. Jules Koundé and Lucas Digne have been left exposed repeatedly and no opponent has had the quality to punish it. Bukayo Saka and Anthony Gordon are exactly the punishment that would arrive. Play France and England get a game with space in it, which is the kind of game Bellingham has been winning on his own.
Spain would not give them that. Spain would take the ball, keep it for an hour, let England run at nothing, and score in the 87th minute through a substitute. England have not once this summer demonstrated they can chase a match against a side of that calibre. Spain have already beaten them in a final, in Berlin, two years ago, and the memory of that night is not one anybody at the FA has processed.
The trouble is that England do not get to pick, and they do not even get to watch this one properly. What is a manager supposed to do with the knowledge that the hardest opponent might be the one waiting after the hardest opponent?
