Spain beat Belgium 2-1 on Thursday to reach the World Cup semifinal, where they will meet France, because of course they will.
The bracket spent three weeks producing the appearance of competition. Spain dispatched Group C, cleared a round of 16 without drama, and arrived in the quarterfinal as the obvious finalist-in-waiting. France went 7-0 at the tournament, with Kylian Mbappé accounting for eight goals and a résumé that ESPN has called one of the great individual World Cup campaigns of the modern era. The rest of the draw existed to confirm what was already true. On Tuesday, July 14 — Bastille Day, which is a detail the soccer gods apparently could not resist — these two teams will meet at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to finally play the final everyone has been watching in their heads.
https://x.com/TheAthleticFC/status/2075695291697688688
Spain and France have done this before. France won the Nations League final in 2021. Spain won the Euro 2024 semifinal 2-1. Now a World Cup semifinal. The same two teams, the same scorelines, the same inability of any tournament bracket to keep them apart. At some point the pattern stops being coincidence and becomes a verdict: these are the best two teams in the world, and they find each other because they eliminate everyone else.
The counterargument writes itself: Spain was not clinical on Thursday. Fabián Ruiz gave them the lead, Charles De Ketelaere equalized for Belgium late in the first half, and Spain needed Mikel Merino — again — to rescue them. Merino came off the bench, one minute and 57 seconds in, and converted from a Senne Lammens spill of a Cubarsí shot. Lammens was only in goal because Thibaut Courtois pulled up injured in warm-up. ESPN called Spain’s attack “wasteful.” That’s accurate. This Spain doesn’t blow teams out — they outlast them, and when they can’t outlast them, Merino materializes.
It was also the second consecutive knockout round where Merino scored as a substitute. Spain didn’t need to be dominant. They just needed to survive and execute at the right moment, which is a different and arguably more durable form of excellence.
I covered enough Northwestern football games as a student journalist to recognize what a championship-caliber process looks like versus a lucky one. Spain has the 36-match unbeaten run — one win away from surpassing Italy’s all-time record — because they manufacture moments rather than wait for them.
On the other sideline, Mbappé has 20 career World Cup goals in 20 matches, per ESPN. Only Lionel Messi has more. He was subbed out at the 77th minute against Morocco with a minor ankle issue, declared himself fine, and Didier Deschamps agreed. France will not be short of him.
Then there is Lamine Yamal, who is 18 years old, turns 19 on July 13 — the day before the semifinal — and has the unsettling calm of someone who has never considered the possibility that the moment might be too large. He’s been quiet by his own standards in this tournament, one goal in six appearances, but after Spain-Belgium he told reporters: “No team has played against us on equal terms. They all stay behind against us. If France has to fear any team, it’s Spain.” He’s a teenager delivering a closing argument. For all our World Cup coverage this tournament, including our piece on Haaland and Kane at this tournament, nothing has landed quite like that sentence.
Spain and France will meet on Bastille Day to settle something that three tournaments of proximity have left unresolved.
The World Cup got its final. It just forgot to tell the other four teams.
