Spain outplay France to reach World Cup final

Spain frustrated France at one end and punished them at the other to deservedly win their FIFA World Cup 2026 semi-final at Dallas Stadium. La Roja limited Les Bleus’ chances though some flawless defending and scored thorough Mikel Oyarzabal and Pedro Porro.

Spain will now face the England-Argentina victors at New York New Jersey Stadium on Sunday. They emerged triumphant in their only previous appearance in the fixture, Andres Iniesta sinking the Netherlands at Soccer City in 2010.

France started as the slight favourites and, though Kylian Mbappe threatened on the break, Lamine Yamal gave Luis de la Fuente’s side the game’s first big chance. The winger, a day after his 19th birthday, got to the ball before Lucas Digne and was clipped inside the box. Oyarzabal struck the resulting penalty past spot-kick-saving specialist Mike Maignan, he has now scored 18 goals in his last 20 games for Spain and his penalty made him the sixth man to reach 30 goals for Spain after David Silva (35), Alvaro Morata (37), Fernando Torres (38), Raul (44) and David Villa (59).

The advantage was amplified when Player of the Match Porro played a palatial one-two with Dani Olmo, taking the return impeccably and burying the ball in the bottom corner.

France, with Desire Doue and Rayan Cherki on, pushed to get back into a game but goalkeeper Unai Simon acted astutely as a sweeper-keeper and Marc Cucurella made an excellent challenge on Mbappe.

The final whistle sparked ecstasy for the Spaniards and agony for the French. Didier Deschamps’ team will have a shot at bronze on Saturday, when Mbappe could boost his hopes for another adidas Golden Boot.

“We started almost four years ago with an idea, and we’ve been faithful to that idea and it’s brought us here. Today we faced one of the best national teams in the world but in front of them they had the best team in the world. That is the difference. These players deserve everything. Day after day, they’ve showed their commitment, solidarity, generosity, talent. They make the difficult look easy,” Luis de la Fuente, Spain coach, said to RTVE.

“It’s a dream come true. It’s honestly beyond my wildest dreams. I think we played a great game, did everything we had to do to reach the final. We knew we were up against a really, really tough team. This is the team’s achievement, not mine at all. It’s simply about congratulating everyone because they played a fantastic match,” Porroa said.

"I don't think we lacked solutions or desire today. They were simply better than us when it came to winning second balls and recovering possession. I think that's where the game was decided because if we had won more of those balls, we could have caused them a lot more problems," stated Franch player Rayan Cherki.