A delighted Luis de la Fuente warned that Spain were peaking at the right time after comfortably beating France 2-0 and progressing to their first World Cup final since 2010.

Spain completely outplayed their highly fancied opponents, scoring in each half through Mikel Oyarzabal’s penalty and a well-worked Pedro Porro goal. It is a far cry from their grim goalless draw with Cape Verde in the group stage. De la Fuente, who has coached them to the European Championship title, believes they have timed their run perfectly to the tournament’s business end and a showdown against England or Argentina.

“We’re so proud,” he said. “This amazing generation of players has such a great attitude and is a role model for so many different values. We are united for a common cause. Now we have the last step, the toughest one. We’ll have to improve and we’ll try to do so.

“Of course we would have loved to win the first game but this is a process and it was all planned for us to reach these key moments in the best shape possible. Now we are in great shape, the players are very excited and we have reached a peak after this long season.”

De la Fuente allayed any concerns about the condition of Lamine Yamal, who was walking gingerly after full-time, but said Porro had sustained a muscular issue. It did not stop Porro, the Tottenham right-back, from basking in the joy of his achievement. “It’s a dream come true,” Porro said. “Not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine scoring a goal. I’m very happy with the team’s attitude from start to finish. We played a great game, we did everything to advance.”

France simply never got going. Kylian Mbappé lamented a display that appeared listless from the start, suggesting they had deviated from their gameplan. “I don’t think we played the match we wanted to play, whether tactically, technically, or in terms of our overall performance level,” he told the French broadcaster M6.

“When you don’t do what you’re supposed to do in a World Cup semi-final, you don’t win. Our goal was to press them high up the pitch to prevent them from settling into that slow, controlled rhythm, because when it comes to controlling the game they are better than us. We failed to do that.”

Mbappé confirmed what also seemed clear from the sidelines: that France had been outnumbered by three to two in midfield. “Against Spain that’s a real problem,” he admitted. “When you put it all together, the result is a defeat. It’s a huge disappointment.”

There were few chances for Mbappé to augment his eight-goal haul from this summer, although he will have a chance to grab the Golden Boot in Saturday’s third place playoff. He will be 31 when the next World Cup arises and said France would have to tackle their desolation head on.

“It’s is something we have to face with our heads held high,” he said. “But right now there is immense disappointment. I find it hard to put into words just how disappointed the squad and I are. Football waits for no one. We have to start over, put this failure behind us, and learn from it.”

The manager, Didier Deschamps, admitted France fell well short on the day. “We are disappointed of course, the players are deflated,” he said. “The ambition was there, we are not lacking ambition. We are a group of competitors and there are some things we didn’t do well.

“I don’t want to take away from or throw away everything they’ve done so far. We should have been more dangerous on the pitch and made the game more difficult for Spain. We should have been 100% at our technical level as well as our physical level. We were not at 100% today unfortunately.”

It means the final match of Deschamps’ 12-year tenure will be Saturday’s third-place game in Miami. He departed with a cryptic broadside at the El Salvadorean referee, Iván Barton. “I’ll ask a loaded question and I won’t answer it,” he said. “Is the referee at the level required to officiate a World Cup semi-final?”

Barton awarded Spain a penalty after Lucas Digne’s foul on Lamine Yamal and booked two France players, but the exact nature of Deschamps’ complaint was unclear despite invitations to clarify. “I’m not saying this just because we lost today,” he said. “There were quite a few situations. There were some favourable calls, too.”