{"id":54864,"date":"2026-07-14T07:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T07:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/54864\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T07:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T07:56:10","slug":"fifa-world-cup-all-eyes-on-mbappe-yamal-as-spain-france-meet-in-final-before-the-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/54864\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa World Cup: all eyes on Mbappe, Yamal as Spain, France meet in \u2018final before the final\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain and France rightly feel that the winner of their semi-final will go on to claim the \u2060World Cup.<\/p>\n

England and Argentina, who play \u2060in the other semi-final in Atlanta on Wednesday (Thursday 3am, Hong Kong time), would disagree \u2060but as Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente said of their showdown in Arlington, Texas: \u201cIt\u2019s not an exaggeration to describe this match as a final before the final.\u201d<\/p>\n

France are the top-ranked team in the Fifa rankings, while Spain are No 3. With Argentina at No 2 and England No 4, this marks the first time the top four teams have reached \u200cthe semi-finals.<\/p>\n

Each team can present their case to earn a spot in Sunday\u2019s final in East Rutherford, New Jersey, but Spain have been playing up a psychological advantage over the favoured Les Bleus, having defeated them in their past two meetings in semi-finals: the 2025 Nations League (5-4) and the 2024 European Championships (2-1).<\/p>\n

\u201cFrance are one of the best teams here, in great form, but so are we,\u201d Spain midfielder Rodri said. \u201cWe can beat them. We\u2019ve seen that at the Euros and in the Nations League.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LamineLamine Yamal celebrates after scoring Spain\u2019s first goal in their 2-1 semi-final win at Euro 2024. Photo: AP<\/p>\n

French \u2060midfielder Kylian Mbappe knows that, as the tournament favourite, the pressure is on to become the third nation to reach three consecutive finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain and France rightly feel that the winner of their semi-final will go on to claim the \u2060World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4027,15460,11977,2881,389,23109,2383,66,3357,556,15704,866,22899,11024,5280,1437,17,1511,369],"class_list":["post-54864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-argentina","tag-arlington","tag-atlanta","tag-belgium","tag-colombia","tag-east-rutherford","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-fifa","tag-france","tag-hong-kong","tag-italy","tag-nations-league","tag-norway","tag-qatar","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-spain","tag-texas","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}