On the way out of the dressing room in Arlington, Luis de la Fuente gathered his “family” and delivered one last message before the World Cup semi-final against France. He had long known what he was going to say, if not exactly how – it’s what he has been saying for 50 days and more. “I’ll tell them that this is a unique stage, the kind of moment that may never be repeated again, and that we have to be ourselves,” he had suggested 18 hours earlier; now that idea crystallised in a line. “We’re facing one of the best lineups in the world,” the Spain coach told them, “but we’re the best team in the world.”
By the time they made their way back in again, a voice was heard above the shouts, another line to encapsulate it all, to define this. It belonged to Marc Cucurella and it said: “What a fucking recital!” A call came in to De la Fuente, King Felipe on the phone saying pretty much the same thing, if a little more politely. On went the music, Jamaican (Bam Bam) blasting out, pizza was passed around, and they bounced about. Some did, anyway. Some just sat there taking in what they had done. “It was written: we started in Atlanta and we end in New York,” Dani Olmo said, but a semi-final is not supposed to be like this.
Certainly not against them. Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé, Michael Olise. Yeah, and? Another voice: “You ate him up!” And another: “Take him out your pocket!” “Pardon pardon,” Lamine Yamal posted. Three years in a row, three competitions, one result: in 2024 Spain knocked France out of the Euros in the semi-final, in 2025 the same happened in the Nations League semi final, and now this, the World Cup. So maybe it is supposed to be like this; maybe everyone should have thought Spain were favourites, like Spain did. But those other semi-finals were not like this; maybe no other semi-final has been.
The stats say so. No semi-finalist has been reduced to as little as this since Sweden eight World Cups ago. And that, with apologies, was Sweden; this is France. It was not just about the result, it was about the way it was done. It’s not supposed to be so … easy? Not supposed to be played out to olés, French players beaten, chasing a ball they know they’re not going to be allowed to reach. They had already given up on a final that Spain would not allow them to reach either. On the touchline, Spain’s squad counted down, arms around each other. A thousand thoughts, sure, but no nerves, no tension.
“The team is euphoric,” Rodri said. De la Fuente was asked about a line Luis Aragonés used to say about not celebrating until you have won something. He admires Aragonés, he said, how could he not, but he wasn’t having it. This was to be celebrated. “No, no,” he said, “I’m not into these ‘literary’ or ‘journalistic’ phrases. I’m made of different stuff. What we have done is very hard, why would we not be happy? I value the journey, what we have done. Only one team can win the World Cup and whatever happens this is a success.”
“It will be the game of our lives,” Rodri said, but maybe they had already played it, and it was a picture of who they are. France were a portrait too, a collection of players that didn’t know what to do, that had no response; Spain would not allow them one. Finalists four years ago and four years before, this generation was supposed to be even better. They had scored more goals than anyone and seemed unstoppable, yet they could not manage a shot on target until the final quarter against Spain. Their xG had gone from an average of 2.4 per game to 0.31, their lowest ever. They had allowed only 0.6xG against, and Spain racked up 1.7. And that on a day when Spain’s game was about control more than creation.
If this was about the stars, Lamine Yamal v Mbappé, there was a clear winner again: that’s now 9-2 to the kid who just turned 19. But here comes the narrator’s voice: it was not about the stars. At a World Cup where much has been made of the big names turning up – Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Mbappé until he faced Spain – much of the discourse around Spain has been around when Lamine Yamal would turn up. Too much of the discourse has been around that. Because it suggests he hasn’t turned up, when he has, even if he hasn’t had his Big Night. And because this is a collective, a team. For all the spotlight, Lamine Yamal knows that too.
Before the game, De la Fuente and Rodri had talked about Lamine Yamal remaining calm, not allowing the “anxiety” to take him, the urge to live up to the expectation. It was read as an attempt to protect a teenager, a psychological message about the pressure, the weight of responsibility, but it was tactical too. There are so many words to describe Spain’s performance against France, and many are superlatives, but one is disciplined. Lamine Yamal took fewer risks and rarely lost the ball: that was not timidity, it was part of the plan, and Spain executed it to perfection, aware of exactly what they had to do.
Choose a player, and it’s there, all the way to the goalkeeper, Unai Simón, repeatedly out to meet Mbappé. Rodri, a player De la Fuente described as “made for our model”, won more duels than all France’s players put together and completed more passes than anyone else. Olmo had Juan Mata tweeting: “How he plays!” Fabián Ruiz has played for Spain 49 times and never lost. Pau Cubarsí is from a village so small it doesn’t have a football pitch, but he may be the best centre-back at the World Cup, with the possible exception of Aymeric Laporte, who at the diaspora World Cup is one Frenchman who is going to the final.
Cucurella has two assists and Pedro Porro two goals. Which may be what happens with attacking full-backs, only that’s twice as many goals as they have conceded. They have allowed fewer than 1.5 shots on target per game. Watch the Porro goal back and it all starts with Spain playing their way out from a tight corner, 100 metres away. Look at the heat map and Mikel Oyarzabal is a midfielder, all part of the plan. “Centre-backs don’t like having to come to there,” he said, offering an explanation of the mechanics. Sometimes his job, he says, is to “not get in the way”. The quiet man has five goals; no Spaniard has got more at a World Cup.
If the start was slow, here they are, just where they always thought they would be, even if others didn’t. “It was planned to be in our best shape at the most important moment,” De la Fuente said. “We know France, how dangerous they are, but we also knew how to deactivate them. But in the end, it’s down to the players. However much you tell them something, it’s down to them to know how to find the spaces. Your pieces of paper and all the arrows aren’t worth much without them. Spanish players are the best precisely because of that interpretation of football. We started four years ago and we have been faithful to an idea, which is what brought us here.”
There have been tweaks to that idea. Two years ago, a virtue was made of Spain’s vertigo, the twist on tiki taka provided by two flying wingers, and now it is back to the control that defined them before. But there is a line of continuity, as well as an intense competitiveness, a commitment to the collective and to each other, going back a long time. De la Fuente’s tightest embraces were for those with whom he won the 2015 Under-19s Euros: “We said: ‘Back then could you ever have imagined being here?’”
Maybe not in 2015, no, but he knew. The Spanish generation that lifted the World Cup in 2010 are held up as some untouchable image of perfection, a team you cannot possibly match; but this generation, European champions like them, are in the World Cup final too. That 2010 team never had a performance like this. Never mind the “names”, De la Fuente kept telling people that Spain’s players were the best. He told them that too, all together, just before they went out and showed the world it was true.
