ARLINGTON, Texas — Kylian Mbappé and France haven’t trailed at all during this year’s World Cup. Neither has Spain with teenage sensation Lamine Yamal and clutch goal-scoring substitute Mikel Merino.

Only one of those teams can make it to the final.

France and Spain are both playing in their 17th World Cup but have met only once previously on soccer’s biggest stage. They play Tuesday at AT&T Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, in the first of two powerhouse semifinal matches.

After entering the tournament as FIFA’s top-ranked team, France has outscored its opponents 14-2. Mbappé, the 2022 Golden Boot winner, has eight goals to match Lionel Messi for the scoring lead and is one behind the Argentina captain’s career record of 21 in the World Cup.

“We are focused,” France midfielder Adrien Rabiot said. “We are confident, of course, with the course we have done so far — and we have to be — but always with this humility that has characterized us since the beginning of the competition.”

The 27-year-old Mbappé has 20 goals in 20 World Cup matches, including one in the 2018 win over Croatia when he joined Pele as the only teenagers to score in a World Cup final. The star striker for Les Blues said he is fine despite exiting in the 77th minute of their 2-0 quarterfinal win over Morocco after scoring a goal.

Yamal, who turned 19 on Monday, already has been part of two semifinal wins for Spain over France. He was days shy of his 17th birthday when he scored in a 2-1 win during the 2024 European Championship semifinals, and Spain won again in Nations League play last year.

“I believe if France has to fear anyone, it should be us,” Yamal said after Spain’s quarterfinal victory over Belgium. “We were the ones that knocked them out before.”

The teen has only one goal while putting 10 shots on target after coming into the World Cup still nursing a left hamstring issue that forced him to miss the final weeks of the Spanish league season for Barcelona.

France defender Jules Koundé also plays for Barcelona, so he knows Yamal well and didn’t feel disrespected by those comments.

“For me he is a sign of confidence. He always does it with (Barcelona). He trusts a lot in his virtues, in the virtues of the team where he plays,” Koundé said in translated remarks. “So I see nothing as an extra motivation for him and that’s it, that’s all.”

Spain has outscored opponents 10-1 since a stunning scoreless draw against surprising Cape Verde to open group play, but La Roja needed late decisive goals from Merino after he entered the last two games as a second-half substitute. All while goaltender Unai Simón set a World Cup record of 650 minutes without allowing a goal until Belgium found the net in the 41st minute of their quarterfinal game.

“I think that from the first game until today, the team needed to catch the rhythm. We had been without seeing each other for a long time,” Spain midfielder Alex Baena said, adding that with more games and practices, “the better the team has been.”

Merino scored in the 88th minute for that 2-1 win over Belgium on Friday. That came after the Arsenal forward’s goal in the first minute of second-half stoppage time for the 1-0 win over Portugal in the round of 16 at the same stadium where Spain’s semifinal match will be played.

Quartet of past champions

This is the first World Cup since 1990 that each of the final four teams is a former champion.

Messi and defending champion Argentina, which beat France for the title four years ago, play England in the other semifinal Wednesday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

The championship match is Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. A third-place game will be played Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.

Both have lifted the World Cup trophy since they last met

In their only previous World Cup meeting, France beat Spain 3-1 in a round-of-16 game at the 2006 tournament in Germany.

Both teams have won the World Cup since then, with Spain claiming its only title in 2010. France won its second World Cup in 2018.

France, which will be playing on its Bastille Day national holiday, is trying to join five-time champion Brazil and four-time winner Germany as the only teams to make three consecutive World Cup finals.

Brazil did it in 1994, 1998 and 2002 — winning two titles and losing to host France in the middle of that run. Germany’s championship in 1990 came after being runner-up in the previous two World Cups — all playing as West Germany at the time.

Argentina beat France in a penalty shootout in 2022 after playing to a 3-3 draw.

This is France’s seventh semifinal appearance, its fifth in the last eight World Cups. Spain’s only other semifinals were in 1950 and then 2010 on the way to the title.

Wrapping up in Dallas

AT&T Stadium will be hosting its tournament-high ninth game in this year’s expanded 48-team tournament.

There have been some soccer superstar moments in the one-month run in the building that has hosted a Super Bowl and NCAA championship games for football and men’s basketball.

Messi scored three goals in Argentina’s two group games, the first on June 22, when, after missing a penalty kick, he broke the World Cup career scoring mark with the first of his two goals in a 2-0 win over Austria. He added another goal as a late substitute in the group finale June 27 against Jordan.

Cristiano Ronaldo, the 41-year-old superstar from Portugal, finished his sixth and final World Cup in the 1-0 round-of-16 loss to Spain on July 6.