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Broadcasters expect to have time to analyse the gameChannels planning for break to last 25 to 30 minutesITV and BBC are planning to screen Fifa’s controversial half-time show in full from Sunday’s final at the New York New Jersey Stadium, but remain in the dark over how long it will last.The Guardian revealed last month that there were concerns among broadcasters at the length of the half-time spectacle, which has been curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin and will feature Madonna, Shakira and the K-pop boyband BTS. They are planning for the interval to last between 25 and 30 minutes.Both UK rights holders have decided to broadcast the show in full because, with the requirements to set up and remove the stage from the pitch, they anticipate having sufficient time to analyse the game as well.The laws of the game overseen by the International Football Association Board (Ifab) state that “players are entitled to an interval at half-time, not exceeding 15 minutes, and it may be altered only with the referee’s permission”. Fifa is therefore potentially breaching that but is not believed to have received any pushback from Ifab.The first matches in each of the host countries featured lengthy musical opening ceremonies, with Shakira and Burna Boy headlining an extensive pre-match show before Mexico beat South Africa in the Mexico City Stadium.Alanis Morissette and Michael Bublé headlined a show in Toronto before Canada v Bosnia and Herzegovina and Katy Perry fronted a performance before the USA’s first game against Paraguay.Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, has described the half-time show as “groundbreaking spectacle” that will “celebrate football, music and our shared values, ensuring a legacy that transcends the final whistle”.

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Luis de la Fuente’s final-bound team have been fuelled by togetherness and a commitment to each other that goes back a long wayOn 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 had 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-finallist 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 replied, “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 even better. They had scored more goals than anyone here, 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 versus 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, that 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. And 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.

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⚽ Kick-off in Atlanta is 3pm EST/8pm BST/5am AEST⚽ Golden Boot | Player guide | And get Football DailyThomas Tuchel believes England will face an Argentina team “fuelled by history” in their World Cup semi-final in Atlanta on Wednesday. It will be the sixth time that the nations have met at the tournament with the previous three coming after the Falklands war of 1982.The most controversial game was in the 1986 quarter-finals when Diego Maradona scored his “Hand of God” goal and Argentina won 2-1 en route to the title. Argentina triumphed on penalties in the last 16 in 1998 when David Beckham was sent off. Beckham gained a measure of revenge four years later when he scored from the penalty spot for a 1-0 group-stage victory. England won 3-1 at the group phase in 1962 and 1-0 in the quarter-finals in 1966, when they went on to become champions. Continue reading...

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We often call England v Argentina a grudge match – a simple story of mutual hatred. But the truth is far more complex, says the Guardian’s Jonathan Liew.It began with British influence, raising Argentina as a ‘faithful son’ in their own image through polo, tea, and football. But decades of nationalist rejection, iconic World Cup clashes, and a war over the Falkland Islands turned them into ultimate footballing antagonists.Yet, the two teams haven't played a match in over twenty years. Lionel Messi has never faced England. In an era of over-saturated, commercialised sport, this scarcity has kept the romance of their rivalry alive. Because underneath the bad blood, there is a deep, mutual fascination: two nations that probably revere each other far more than they’d ever care to admit.

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Kylian Mbappé, Michael Olise and Ousmane Dembélé blew teams away in the early rounds of the World Cup but France had no answers when faced with Spain’s tactical superiorityFor the last few weeks, France had seemed destined to reach their third straight World Cup final, but in the end they were overrun by a more tactically coherent Spain team in the semi-finals. Once France went behind to Mikel Oyarzabal’s penalty in the 22nd minute – the first time they had trailed in the tournament – Didier Deschamps’ side never looked like mounting a comeback. There would be no bolt from the blue from Kylian Mbappé, with the match instead plodding along to its logical conclusion. Where did it go wrong and what will come next?France’s all-star attack had been praised across the globe for the last six weeks. Having scored 13 goals in their first four matches, their frontline looked unstoppable. Against Spain, though, the forwards did not combine meaningfully with one another and their lack of clinical edge was laid bare.France were 2-0 down before they had a shot on target. Mbappé, the second top scorer in men’s World Cup history, failed to have a shot on target. As had been the case in the last two matches, Mbappé’s attacking impact was blunted by the need to drop deeper into midfield, and his first shot did not arrive until midway through the second half.Michael Olise, who was compared to Michel Platini for his playmaking performances in the group stage, lost the ball 20 times and struggled to find his bearings. Ousmane Dembélé did not trouble Unai Simón until the final minutes of the match. Of the starting quartet, the most significant impact on the match came from Bradley Barcola in his defensive contributions, with Lucas Digne unable to contain Lamine Yamal.France’s forwards, who had looked so at ease swapping positions and combining in the early stages of the competition, appeared increasingly isolated from each other as the knockout stages progressed. In locking down the middle third of the pitch, Spain succeeded in keeping the forwards distant from each other and cut off from the rest of the team.Adrien Rabiot was the only France player who repeatedly broke down the Spanish lines, but he was hamstrung by the yellow card he picked up in the 10th minute. Deschamps’ decision to take him off at half-time drastically decreased France’s chances of winning the midfield battle. Alongside the recently injured Aurélien Tchouaméni, who often found himself playing too far back to have any influence on the match, Manu Koné was unable to replicate his standout performance against Morocco.Deschamps made a some like-for-like switches but they had no impact on the momentum of the game. Desiré Doué and Rayan Cherki were confined to isolated pockets of space, and Théo Hernandez did not fare any better than Digne against Spanish attacks down the right wing.It would be difficult to argue France underestimated their opponents; Deschamps repeatedly singled out Spain as the favourites to win the tournament. Whether this was a sincere assessment or an attempt to reduce the pressure on his own team, his observation was backed up by recent experience.Counting the last Olympic final, France have now lost four consecutive matches to Spain, all in semi-finals or finals. Spain’s midfield supremacy ultimately made the difference in all of those matches. For the second time in three years, France were overrun by a midfield consisting of Rodri, Fabián Ruiz and Dani Olmo.Spain’s midfield superiority extends beyond matches between the senior sides. Whatever the lineup, whatever the age group, Spain have a clearly defined style that is replicated across all of their teams as part of an all-encompassing strategy. The same cannot be said of France’s various teams, which often seem to be built on a case-by-case basis in response to the individual talent available. Up against a deeply ingrained tactical setup, those individuals have been thwarted at every turn.Deschamps will end his 14-year tenure after Saturday’s third-place playoff in Miami. Finishing on the podium at three World Cups would not make for bad reading, and would surely place Deschamps as France’s best-ever head coach, but the lasting verdict will be that he could have achieved more given the talent at his disposal.The freedom Deschamps afforded his forwards in this tournament could also have been seen as a transition towards the Zinedine Zidane era. Zidane was famously non-interventionist when it came to coaching his front three at Real Madrid, and the depth of talent in the France squad will allow for a similar approach.In any case, Zidane’s appointment is likely to bring a degree of continuity to the national team. Like Deschamps, Zidane is above all a pragmatist on the sidelines. He is also an icon who commands respect in the dressing room – even more so than Deschamps. There are reasons to be optimistic. He will have a relatively young squad and will have goodwill from fans, players and decision-makers.The 2018 and 2022 World Cup campaigns were ultimately the culmination of Deschamps’ tactics of control and pragmatism, which took several tournaments to perfect before they became a winning formula. That approach had evidently run its course by Euro 2024 and he was right to switch things up. It was perhaps overly ambitious, though, to expect such a radical change to click straight away. France breezed into the latter stages, but they failed against Spain.This new-look France team may realise its full potential in four years’ time under Zidane. If that is the case, Deschamps’ legacy will be winning a World Cup and also laying the foundations for the new era.This is an article by Get French Football News

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Governing body receives 15% commission from buyer and sellerThe court has ordered Fifa “to cease facilitating ticket sales without informing buyers of the seller’s identity and address [specifically for sellers acting in a commercial capacity] in a timely manner prior to the buyer completing their purchase”.The injunction applies only in Germany and is unlikely to have any effect on Fifa’s operations for the tournament. Fifa did not appear before the court in Frankfurt, with Ticombo now seeking to take its case to Switzerland, which will take some time.In addition to the high prices, there have been repeated complaints about a lack of transparency from Fifa, particularly regarding who is selling the tickets and the location of seats in stadiums. In May, the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey launched their own investigation into Fifa’s sale of tickets at the MetLife Stadium, which will stage Sunday’s final, after receiving complaints from fans that they had been misled over the location of their seats.New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, said: “No one should be manipulated into paying sky-high prices for seats and fans should be able to trust that the tickets they purchase will be the ones they receive.”Ticombo accepts the injunction has come too late to make any difference at this World Cup, but wants to keep pressure on Fifa to alter its practices before the next tournament in 2030, the majority of which will take place in Spain and Portugal.In its submission to the Frankfurt regional court, Ticombo accused Fifa of “systematically concealing the identity and any possible trader status of its sellers to allow commercial entities to operate as undisclosed traders selling ticket allocations at heavily inflated prices”.Ticombo also claims Fifa uses “manipulative design features” on its last-minute sales platform, including:Bait-and-switch pricing, where prices initially appear significantly lower than those shown once consumers enter the purchase process, with prices automatically rising steeply at checkout.Imposing aggressive deadlines, with buyers given a strict, non-resettable six-minute countdown, which locks them out of the purchase if it is not completed in time.Manipulative defaults, such as using a “book the best seat” function, to remove consumer choice by automatically selecting the most expensive seat available.Concealed pricing, where individual ticket prices are not clearly shown to consumers until after selection had been made.“This historic injunction is an important legal and public-interest step for football fans,” a spokesperson for Ticombo said. “ We initiated this legal action to establish that transparency, fairness, and consumer rights must remain central standards in the ticketing industry, including for the world’s largest sporting events.”

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Whether it is our ‘identity maths’, naked nostalgia or diaspora experience. All seem scarred by the political contexts bearing down on this tournamentI have measured my life in World Cups. The first blurry moments of childhood memory, the passing into adolescence, starting university. Each tournament marks a season of life. Each one is also associated with potent, formative emotional events: Roger Milla dancing around the corner flag when Cameroon became the first African team to reach the quarter-finals in 1990; Roberto Baggio’s devastating goal that knocked out a Nigeria that had been on a thriller streak in 1994; Zinedine Zidane’s tragically ignominious head-butt in 2006 during his last-ever match. But this World Cup has felt different from the start.Watching the World Cup as a Black diaspora viewer is a broadly unhinged exercise that still adheres to an elegant logic. You might describe the process of deciding your allegiance as a sort of “identity maths”. You support the African teams until they get knocked out (and thanks to the extended format, this time around we had so many more heroic teams such as Cape Verde and the DRC). Then you move on to a combination of Black diaspora teams from elsewhere, then adopted homelands, and then just adopted teams because you like their vibe or their country’s politics. The last category is really tenuous and involves a lot of projection. Spain is a good example of this, a country that has a sort of unproblematic European outlier aura that imbues it with more political proximity to the post-colonial experience than, say, Norway. Then there’s France, which, despite being an ex-colonial power, has a majority-Black team and therefore trumps Spain. I do not make the rules of identity maths.This chopping and changing of our loyalties seems to echo a wider state of diasporic orphanhood, and the more that players of African descent come to play for big footballing nations, the more these loyalties become complicated by what individual players come to represent. They, often unwittingly, become avatars of our political frustrations and aspirations, rather than just players we feel we have some affinity with.This World Cup, more than all the others I recall vividly, has the weight of so many political contexts bearing down on it. There is anger at the United States under Donald Trump – a host country whose president has desecrated the tournament by interfering and securing a reversal of a red card for a US player. Anger at Fifa, an organisation that is increasingly seen as irredeemably and nakedly corrupt. And underlying it all, anger at anti-immigration discourse and policy across the United States and parts of Europe, which has formed the backdrop for this tournament.The result is that the identity maths has become notably less frivolous and fun, taking on more political gravity. Figures like Frenchman, Ousmane Dembélé, and his hijabi (low-key niqabi) wife, Rima Edbouche, become not just a totem of multicultural society, but a rebuke of Islamophobia and racism. Kylian Mbappé can’t just play, he has to fend off wildly racist attacks from a Paraguayan senator. The England team is majority Black, representing a country in one of its darkest eras of anti-immigration and far-right politics. The rightwing Reform MP Robert Jenrick posts “Come on England” in one breath, and announces that he wants immigration to be “less than zero” in another. As if these children of immigrants are different to those he maligns – a sort of permissible minority, supported temporarily, for accolade purposes. Black footballers carry the burden of achievement while constantly being subjected to personal abuse and political erasure. And so being a Black diaspora football lover in these contexts is to constantly be veering between anger and concern, happiness and disgruntlement, celebration and resentment. Come on England, yes. But also, how dare you?This tournament comes at a unique global moment in which we are suspended in a sort of interregnum of trauma. We are post-pandemic, post-Gaza, post-Black Lives Matter backlash, post-death of the rules-based order. And, of course, post-enshittification of X under Elon Musk. Together, these forces intersect in a swirl of digital and real life conspiracy and intrigue. These dynamics finally curdled last week, when Egypt’s goal against Argentina was disallowed, setting up Argentina’s eventual last-minute victory. It was all a fix, many said, with all sorts of lurid allegations about Fifa backing Argentina and Egypt being punished for its coach’s post-Gaza remarks. I get it. So much trust has rightly haemorrhaged from sporting institutions and political establishments – can you blame people for thinking something sinister was afoot when the actual president of the United States admits he had a word about a red card? When Trump has been awarded a risible Fifa Peace prize?I’m not being a football purist. The World Cup is fundamentally about, and in fact structured around, political tribes and the nation state. It is the very magic of the tournament that each team becomes a projection of a country. For better or for worse, states are how we are organised and socialised. But the beauty of it all was in the ability to micro-dose the politics, and not become engulfed by it.All I want is to watch football as I always have: on a laptop, with my back turned to it because I can’t handle the stress. I want to feel sick because the team that I chose only this morning, but who I will now die for, is losing. I want to gulp down tears along with the weeping players because life is beautiful and tragic, and not because a dodgy official or politician decided their fates. I don’t want a seminar after every match. I don’t want a Cup where every game becomes a metaphor for colonialism or the state of geopolitics or where every refereeing decision is scrutinised and overruled and dispatched as motivated. I don’t want our diaspora chemistries and playful underdog solidarities to harden into paranoia and disgust. I hate it!But still, as the tournament draws to a close, I find myself in awe of the way that the World Cup – despite its inexorable technical optimisations, commercialisations and organisational cynicism – remains stubbornly porous to whatever we are collectively feeling and going through. Because, ultimately, the World Cup is the only event that sees so many of us turn up, bringing our fears, frustrations, hopes and aspirations with us. It is the biggest and also most finely tuned compass for where we are, marking our coordinates, every four years. And this is where we are. I shall measure my life in this one, too. To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.What have been your highs and lows of this World Cup? Tell us by replying to this, or emailing us at thelongwave@theguardian.com and we may include your response in a future issue.

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L’Équipe laments ‘mentally sunk’ players iin DallasOuest France front page reads: ‘End of American dream’French fans’ expectations of their national team had been at an all-time high: a semi-final on Bastille Day, Kylian Mbappé a hero, a squad unbeaten. Across the country, bars had been packed with viewers spilling on to pavements, ready to crack open the fireworks ahead of hopes for the final.But the night was unexpectedly subdued, streets cleared early. On Wednesday morning, the French media were still digesting the disappointment of defeat in a World Cup semi-final, praising Spain’s performance in Texas while struggling to comprehend Les Bleus’ fall from a high.“Demolished” headlined the print edition of the French sports paper L’Équipe on its match report. France’s World Cup adventure “deserved more than this disaster of a game, this disaster of strategy and emotions”, wrote Vincent Duluc. He said France could not even complain about losing because of the “feeling of barely really having played, and of betraying the magic of this American dream”.Duluc felt the team had been physically not up to it, that there were technical mistakes and, above all, the players had appeared “mentally sunk by the emotional dimension of the match”.After the French team had been placed on the highest pedestal for weeks by fans back home, Le Monde’s correspondent Alexandre Lemarié was saddened. “The fall to earth is as brutal as it is painful,” the paper wrote. It was a “cruel disappointment”, particularly given the team’s performance up to now: “A collective failure.”This semi-final would be hard to forget for all the wrong reasons, wrote the correspondent for the regional northern paper, La Voix du Nord, saying it would “remain a nightmare”. Ouest France headlined its front page with “The end of the American dream” over a picture of Mbappé with his head in his hand. “They fell from very, very high,” was written in Libération.In Le Figaro, Baptiste Desprez was disheartened but recognised Spain’s skill. “Les Bleus, stifled, pummelled and incapable of three passes despite their promise from the start of the competition, faced players stronger than them,” he wrote. “It’s sad. Infuriating. But that’s sport. The strongest won.”

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How was the mood in your city? Did anything surprise you? What will be your enduring memory of the tournament?It’s nearly all over. The biggest World Cup in history – with 48 teams playing 104 matches over 39 days in three countries – is coming to an end. If you live in one of the 16 cities that hosted games, we would love to hear from you.Was the World Cup a success? What was the mood like where you live? Did people buy into the event and enjoy it? Did anything surprise you about the World Cup? Has it changed your view of football or, if you prefer, soccer? Do you think the tournament will have a long-lasting legacy? Has it changed how your country is perceived around the world? What were the highlights and lowlights? And what will be your one enduring memory of the tournament?If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.

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Brilliant buildup play has often withered but control and flawless execution overcame France’s more variable chaosWhen the World Cup came to North America, with its final held in the planet’s biggest media market, the tournament was bound to fixate on stars.Fox’s coverage certainly enables that bias. Every game is billed like a boxing bout between two über-talented footballers rather than 22 players figuring things out across 90 minutes. One semi-final has been distilled down to MESSI v KANE (or MESSI v BELLINGHAM, depending on the broadcaster). The other leaned heavily on hope that Lamine Yamal’s hamstring would finally be at 100% after his April injury. MBAPPÉ v 600 PASSES PER GAME isn’t so snappy.Spain, despite entering as Europe’s reigning champions, have not garnered the same adoration in their run to a second World Cup final as their fellow semi-finalists. Many wondered how they could possibly contend with France. Online skeptics dished out a greater dishonor, accusing Luis de la Fuente’s side of being boring.There was no hero’s shot of Spain’s coach bellowing to the 70,176 fans in Dallas, asking whether they were not entertained. That isn’t the prize he and his charges are after. Any viewer is allowed to think Spain are dull compared to more breakneck alternatives at this World Cup, but as France learned on Tuesday, their approach is lethal when executed as planned.At Euro 2024, De la Fuente’s side operated in a similar style en route to their fourth continental title. They were a team determined to finish their opponents by making them suffer without the ball. Rodri cemented his Ballon d’Or case by anchoring the midfield and affording his teammates greater attacking involvement with expert shielding. Álvaro Morata made his critics eat crow by finishing the chances provided to him, finally the line-leader to actualize Spain’s potential. On either flank was one of the world’s trickiest young wingers: Nico Williams to his left, Lamine Yamal to his right.Most of those pieces returned for this World Cup. From the back, Unai Símon has left his box with some regularity as the team station themselves further upfield. Rodri has been in rare form this summer, a refreshing sight after his injury-riddled 2025-26 that followed the previous year’s anterior cruciate ligament tear. Fabián Ruiz has stepped up as a capable double-pivot partner, spraying balls up the flank if the lanes to Dani Olmo aren’t glowing.And yet, most of the focus has been on Spain’s relative inability to turn top-notch team play into goals. Lamine Yamal and Williams arrived fresh off of spring injuries; Williams has earned 98 minutes through seven matches and Lamine Yamal is not quite at his unplayable best. Morata missed out on this World Cup squad owing to poor form with Como. In sum, Spain’s brilliant buildup has too often withered upon entering the final third.System play like Spain’s looks far less glamorous without a commanding frontman. Like Queen without Freddie Mercury or U2 without Bono, even the best basslines and beats become background noise without someone commanding attention. A healthier Lamine Yamal might have been that kind of player, but in reality this has been a World Cup dominated by strikers and goalkeepers, not the inverted wingers who have come to dominate the Champions League and Premier League in recent years.Then again, Lamine Yamal did make a crucial impact on the game against France. Attackers know to look for overcommitted and unaware defenders making off-ground clearances, as Mathys Tel found in May. As Lucas Digne readied to side-volley a clearance, he created a window for Lamine Yamal to exploit without the ball. There’s no assist on Lamine Yamal’s ledger for drawing a penalty, but his was an act which created a 0.78-xG chance in a game of fine margins.From there, Spain’s control and flawless execution overcame France’s more variable chaos. Aside from against Paraguay, a team playing with less talent on paper, France played over and through lesser-organized opposition. Their ruthlessness against those opponents branded them as tournament favorites despite a fairly plush path to the quarter-final. Morocco were supposed to give the test they needed but showed up in Foxborough looking dazed and out of ideas before the opening whistle.Spain were hardly so timid, having beaten France at the same stage of Euro 2024 and the 2025 Uefa Nations League. Few national teams have the synergy of Spain, with so many of their players having come up in the post-Guardiola era. This is the football they aspired to play. These are the games they dreamed of winning. And, thanks to incredible commitment to their defensive responsibilities, they did so while cutting off a previously goal-drunken France.Granted, the argument for De la Fuente’s pragmatism grows weaker if Spain don’t capitalize on the luck they created. If Lamine Yamal doesn’t draw that penalty, France wouldn’t be on their backfoot before half-time. If Olmo can’t thread that perfect ball into Pedro Porro’s stride while taking contact, there’s no two-goal cushion. The worst-case scenario played out in their draw against Cape Verde, yet De la Fuente stuck by his principles. After all, a team as good as Spain can break through more often than not if everybody is on the same page.Spain are designed to make opponents suffer if they aren’t at their best. It’s a model that can work against any team in international football. Even – and, given three semi-finals’ worth of evidence, especially – mighty France.

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Not everyone supports the country where they were born or grew up. Sometimes fans are won over by a player, place, population or style of playFootballers need to be born in a country or have a family tie to that place to represent them at the World Cup, but those rules do not apply to supporters. Sometimes fans are won over by a team, a star player or even a country. Here six fans tell us why they decided not to support the country of their birth and instead root for teams with whom they have no family ties.Paul, 63, from Sheffield, started supporting France during the 1982 World Cup, when they reached the semi-finals. “It was exciting football and beautiful to watch,” he says. “Michel Platini, Jean Tigana, Alain Giresse … It wasn’t as exciting again until 1998. I introduced my four-year-old daughter to football. We had lovely summer nights, eating snacks, cheering along and shouting: ‘Allez Les Bleus!’”“I don’t know any other France fans. There have been incidents in the past, particularly during the 2004 Euros. At work everybody put a team flag on their computer. I had a France flag and everybody was laughing. France played England in an early game and England were winning 1-0 in the 90th minute, but France won 2-1. The next day, my manager took me aside and said: ‘We’re just sorting out your workstation’. Someone had absolutely demolished it. I wasn’t that bothered.”Paul never regretted his choice. “Since Didier Deschamps has been onboard it has been fantastic. Michael Olise is a joy to watch. I feel a brotherhood with him. Everybody thinks you should support or play for England because you’re born in England. Nope.”Porus Patwari Jain, 31, started watching the Premier League when he was 11 years old. “I’m from a very small industrial town in Rajasthan,” he says. “There was no football culture there, but there are many people my age who now follow football more actively.”His favourite club was Manchester United, where Cristiano Ronaldo played at the time. “Portugal became my chosen team in World Cups,” he says. “I started with Ronaldo, but stayed for Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Pepe and Simão. That team had so much passion and grit. They were not a footballing powerhouse at that time, so the story of a small footballing nation fighting against all odds resonated with me.”Portugal have since given him “so many moments of distress”, he says, “and I wouldn’t change it for anything else”. The latest was their recent defeat against Spain. “Ronaldo has played his last World Cup match and I wish him all the best. Hopefully, they will give me the ultimate heartbreak someday, and end up losing on penalties in the World Cup final.”Iulia, 43, who is from Romania and lives in Hungary, has supported Argentina since she watched them play in the 1994 World Cup. She even spotted the team walking through Budapest last year. “I cannot be sure Lionel Messi was among them but I like to believe so,” she says.Funnily enough, a match between Argentina and Romania kindled her love for the South American team. “I was 11 and it was a big deal that my parents allowed me to stay up to watch,” she says. Romania stunned Argentina in the last-16 stage, winning 3-2. Having watched Romania beat Argentina, she assumed they must now be the best team in the world.In her “young, impressionable mind” Iulia thought she was rooting for the underdog, with Romania surely on course to become a football dynasty. Romania never did become world beaters but Iulia stuck with Argentina and, 28 years after falling for them, she celebrated as they won the World Cup in 2022.“I support a few teams,” says Rachel Fiegler, 38, who lives in New York. “The US team was never very good when I was growing up. I’ve never felt strongly as an American as I was raised to be proud of my Cuban heritage. Cuba is more of a baseball nation. I grew up around a lot of Argentinian friends and family, so naturally became a fan of Argentina. Everyone was so passionate watching them play.”During the 2010 World Cup, Rachel rooted for Uruguay. I thought they were a great team and I really liked the players,” she says. “I loved watching Diego Godín, Luis Suárez and all those guys. It was definitely rough to watch Uruguay at this tournament.”Rachel does, however, support the US women’s team. “They’re a huge team full of passionate and talented athletes. They really care. I never got that feeling from the men’s team.”Oliver, 32, from Jersey, watched as Edin Dzeko helped the club he supports, Manchester City, win the Premier League title in 2012. The Bosnian striker’s impact for City cemented Oliver’s support for Bosnia and Herzegovina.“Beyond the club link, the story of Dzeko’s childhood really hit home,” says Oliver. Dzeko was six years old when the siege of Sarajevo began and he was locked inside his family apartment for four years. Only when the sounds of shelling quietened was he allowed to play football with other kids from the neighbourhood. “I like to root for the underdog and I don’t think there’s any bigger underdog than a group of people who survived something so tragic,” says Oliver.Oliver visited Bosnia last year. “I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with the place as much as I did. I adored Sarajevo. It’s beautiful. It’s where east meets west. You can stand in the spot where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Being a history major, it was weirdly a bucket list destination for me.” When Bosnia and Herzegovina beat Italy on penalties to qualify for the World Cup earlier this year, Oliver was delighted. “None of my friends could understand my jubilation,” he says. “To qualify for the last-32 stage was an achievement in itself, but this is only the beginning.”“Kolkata is a football-mad city,” says Angi, 35, who spent the first 20 years of his life in India before moving to Toronto. India have never qualified for the World Cup so football fans look for other teams to support. “Rivalries are drawn between neighbourhoods in Kolkata – you are either Brazil or Argentina.”Angi was born into a family of Brazil fans, who watched ashen-faced as their team collapsed in the 1998 World Cup final, losing 3-0 to France. “At school the next day everybody was talking about it,” he says. “We all wanted to know what happened to Ronaldo and Brazil.”Four years later, when Angi was 12, he watched as Brazil beat Germany in the World Cup final with Ronaldo scoring both goals. “Small neighbourhoods had huge Brazil flags and everybody was watching the game on small screens. Football cuts across all classes in Kolkata. Everyone is watching, dressed in unofficial Brazil tops.”Angi does not believe India will play in the World Cup in his lifetime, but there is an essence of home when it comes to supporting Brazil. “Kolkata and adjoining cities in Bangladesh come alive during the World Cup. I may never be a Brazilian but I will always support the Seleção.”

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Plus: back-to-back heavy wins and defeats, and an unsurprising challenger to a Lionel Messi recordMail us with your all of your questions and answers“The top four teams in the Fifa rankings are also the four semi-finalists at the World Cup,” writes Henry Conroy. “Has this happened before?”The men’s rankings have updated after every match of the World Cup, and Fifa surely missed a trick by not asking the great Martin Tyler to shout “And they’re live!” It means the order has changed during the tournament but the makeup of the top four was the same going into the semi-finals as it was at the start of the competition.The big four were aided by Fifa’s new seeding system, though they still had to take care of business: Spain beat the teams ranked fifth and ninth (Portugal and Belgium), while France saw off No 7 (Morocco). In rankings terms, England’s best knockout win was against Mexico (14th); Argentina’s toughest test was against Switzerland (19th).The Fifa men’s rankings, which were introduced in 1993, only cover the last nine World Cups. In the previous eight, the semi-finals never included more than two teams who were ranked in the top four at the start of the competition.Before we cover our hands in stats, we should point out that the early rankings were fairly primitive: how else to explain the fact that France were 18th in the world and the Netherlands 25th going into the 1998 semi-finals?This year’s semi-finalists had a combined Fifa ranking of 10, which is the lowest possible unless you have, say, two teams in joint third. In the men’s game, the previous best was a combined ranking of 25, which came in 2014:The highest combined ranking of 75 came in 2002, a tournament full of surprises. Only one of the top four got out of the group stage: France and Argentina were eliminated, and Colombia hadn’t qualified in the first place. (Their high ranking was largely a consequence of winning the 2001 Copa América.)Brazil flew the flag for the Fifa rankings and went on to win the entire thing. Four years later, and for the only time so far, none of the top four made the semi-finals. If you can name that top four, you should seek urgent help for trivia addiction. They were, in descending order: Brazil, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Mexico. This was the semi-final lineup in 2006, including a true heavyweight clash between two teams outside the top 10.On two occasions, in 2007 and 2015, the semi-finals included three of the top four. The 2015 Women’s World Cup produced a combined ranking of only 13, with France (No 3) and Sweden (No 5) the two teams missing from the world’s top six.“Sweden’s 5-1 victory against Tunisia was followed by a 5-1 defeat against Netherlands,” writes Dirk Maas. “Are there more examples of stunning World Cup wins followed by heavy defeats with the similar scoreline, or vice versa?”Chris Roe was first to our inbox to point out a more positive turnaround at the 2006 World Cup. “Ukraine lost 4-0 to Spain, and then beat Saudi Arabia by the same score in their next group game.” After their heavy opening defeat in Leipzig, Ukraine completed their Group H escape by edging past Tunisia – and ended up going further in the tournament than Spain, reaching the quarter-finals before losing to Italy.Jeremy Simmonds points us towards Group 2 at the 1954 finals – which we mentioned recently in a question on debut wins. While Turkey were beating South Korea 7-0 in Geneva, West Germany were being humbled by Hungary, losing 8-3 in Basel. A playoff was then required to see who would join the Magical Magyars in the quarter-finals.“West Germany rebounded from a five-goal defeat, beating Turkey by a five-goal margin (7-2),” notes Jeremy. “They went all the way to the final, where they exacted revenge on Hungary, winning 3-2 in Berne.”“Lionel Messi is Argentina’s youngest and oldest goalscorer – has any other footballer achieved this accolade or is likely to in the future?” asks Paul Gage.Dean Whearty has a suggestion, and the name may not surprise you. “This summer, Cristiano Ronaldo became Portugal’s oldest World Cup scorer at the age of 41. He also netted against Iran back in 2006 to become his country’s youngest World Cup scorer – a record which amazingly still stands to this day.”“Has any team been knocked out of the World Cup by the eventual winners more times than England?” asked Will Sturgeon back in 2002. “I can think of four times this has happened: Brazil in 2002, West Germany in 1990, Argentina in 1986 and Brazil again in 1962. Is anybody else as unlucky as us?”The long and short answer at the time was: yes. France and the Netherlands had been eliminated from World Cups by the eventual winners on four occasions, while it had happened to Brazil five times. Germany were also on four – all of them finals – if results recorded as West Germany are included.Brazil (5): Italy (1938, semi-final), Uruguay (1950, final game); Argentina (1978, second group stage); Italy (1982, second group stage); France (1998, final).France (4): Italy (1938, second round); Brazil (1958, semi-finals); England (1966, group stage); Argentina (1978, group stage).Netherlands (4): West Germany (1974, final); Argentina (1978, final); West Germany (1990, last 16); Brazil (1994, quarter-final).Germany (4): England (1966, final); Italy (1982, final); Argentina (1986, final); Brazil (2002, final).2026 update: Back in 2006, Italy beat Germany in the semi-finals and France in the final, adding one to each of their tallies. Four years later, Spain overcame the Netherlands in the 2010 final and Germany in the semis, while in 2014, Germany beat France in the quarter-finals before a forgettable semi-final romp past Brazil.In 2018, France did not eliminate any of the teams mentioned above, but they lost the 2022 final to Argentina, who also took out the Netherlands in the quarter-finals. So by our maths, France have now been knocked out by the eventual champions seven times, leading Brazil, Germany and the Netherlands on six.But wait! Another contender has emerged: Argentina. The Albiceleste have lost in three finals – 1930, 1990 and 2014 – and were knocked out of the group stage in 1958 by West Germany. Defeat to England followed in the 1966 quarter-finals, and they joined Brazil in the three-team group topped by Italy in 1982.Finally, Argentina lost 4-3 to eventual winners France in 2018’s last 16, meaning they are joint-top with seven. If France and Argentina end up meeting in this year’s final, then the losers will take the outright lead as a consolation prize.“Rubén Vargas scored the winning penalty for Switzerland against Colombia’s Camilo Vargas,” notes Matthew Wilkie. “Has anyone ever scored a winning goal before in the World Cup against their namesake?” [We’re also keen on examples from beyond the big dance, if you have them.]“Mexico restarted their last-16 game illegally after England’s third goal,” writes Mike Frost. “They dribbled the ball forward instead of passing it to a teammate, and England were awarded an indirect free-kick [3h 23mins in, UK only]. I can’t recall ever seeing this happen before. Has it occurred at the World Cup, or anywhere else?”We’ll have one more World Cup Knowledge special next week. Send your World Cup questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com.