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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.

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The Argentina captain conserves his energy for bursts in key moments and his top speed compares favourably with his contemporariesEngland’s defenders will face an extreme challenge when they come up against Lionel Messi in their World Cup semi-final. It is not just that he is the greatest player of all time but the almost unique way in which he plays.The 39-year-old is renowned for ambling around for much of a game, saving his energy for when truly required. It makes him incredibly difficult to defend against. Messi finds pockets of space that appear harmless when the ball is not in his orbit, but he springs to life when an opportunity to produce presents itself.It helps explain why no player at this tournament has ended their ball carries of at least five metres with as many shots and key passes combined. Messi has delivered 22 such moments through knowing exactly when to step up a gear.Although he did not score or provide an open-play assist against Switzerland in the quarter-finals, running statistics from that group of matches provide a good snapshot of how Argentina’s captain differs from other elite attackers.It represented 64.8% of his total distance. This proportion was way above the figures that Harry Kane (40.5%), Lamine Yamal (45.4%), Kylian Mbappé (52.6%) and Erling Haaland (55.7%) recorded in their matches.However, far more of their movement was made in the speed categories covering 7 to 20 km/h. There was little difference between Messi and his peers for their percentage of running classified as a sprint by Fifa (at 20 km/h or more).Although a similar proportion of sprinting as younger forwards looks impressive, Messi does not record as many in total. Yet the margin is not always huge. The veteran made the equivalent of 85 sprints per 90 minutes in the quarter-final, more than Haaland (74) and not too far adrift of Mbappé (97).And when Messi hits top speed, he can still go at a decent pace. Data on Sofascore shows his top sprint at this World Cup was 30.9 km/h. That is faster than any run Lautaro Martínez (30.5) or Alexis Mac Allister (30.2) has made for Argentina, despite their being more than a decade younger. It is not far behind the best Kane (31.4) or Jude Bellingham (31.1) have offered either.A positive for England is that their top speed was recorded by Nico O’Reilly (35.6 km/h), one of the players likely tasked with keeping Argentina’s talisman at bay. But being fleet of foot isn’t the only challenge. Monitoring Messi and judging when best to move are much harder tasks.

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Decades after the Falklands war and Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal, the fixture is once again being discussed as far more than a gameWhen Argentina’s national football team burst into the dressing room after beating Switzerland 3-1, they celebrated by singing The Fourth Star, the country’s unofficial World Cup anthem.“For Malvinas, for Diego,” Lionel Messi and his teammates chanted, invoking both the Falkland Islands – known as Islas Malvinas in Argentina – and their football legend Diego Maradona.The lyrics had already become ubiquitous in Argentina during this tournament, but they took on a new significance once it was confirmed that Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final would once again pit Argentina against England.Almost four decades after Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal and his celebrated solo strike helped Argentina triumph in one of football’s most politically charged matches – which followed the 1982 Falklands War between the two countries – Wednesday’s semi-final is once again being discussed, in both Argentina and the UK, as far more than a game.“Behind the Argentina team, there are people who still carry pain, who don’t want to forget their history, and who want to win on the football pitch,” said Pablo “Palmito” Quintana, the musician who wrote the song, explaining why he put “Malvinas” into the lyrics. Quintana, 30, was not alive during the war or during the 1986 quarter-finals, but agrees that these matches “are not just matches”.“The 1986 match was a balm for everyone who had lived through the war,” said Aldo Leiva, a Falklands/Malvinas war veteran and Peronist congressman.“Football has rules and referees. There was none of that in the war. Many Argentines saw the victory – and the ‘hand of God’ – as a form of vindication because they believed Britain had acted outside the rules, especially by sinking the General Belgrano,” he said, speaking about the Argentine cruiser that was torpedoed and sunk by the British outside the agreed exclusion zone. The attack resulted in the deaths of 323 crew members.Víctor Hugo Morales, a Uruguayan journalist whose live commentary of the 1986 match became part of Argentine folklore, said memories of that match were “reverberating” once again.He said that, like the Argentine players today, Maradona himself “insisted it was just a football match [ahead of the game]. But deep down, there was no doubt the Malvinas war was in everyone’s hearts.”“Argentina versus England has become a classic. Before 1986, it was just another match. Since then, it has carried a political and emotional weight that goes far beyond football,” said Morales, who famously described Maradona at the time as a “cosmic kite”.Argentinian media have leaned into the symbolism. Crónica, a television channel known for its sensationalist headlines, previewed the match with captions such as “Argentina vs. the English ‘pirates”, “Messi, with an M for Malvinas“ and “Diego, give us a hand”. Sports daily Olé focused on what it described as a good omen: “It’s official – Argentina will face England wearing blue, just like in ‘86.”Several Argentinian outlets also reported that, ahead of the semi-final, the football club Godoy Cruz hung banners on its stadium that supporters had taken from England fans during the 2014 World Cup, in what was widely interpreted as a provocation.The rivalry is also unfolding against the backdrop of far-right president Javier Milei’s repeated praise for Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister who was public enemy number one in Argentina during the 1982 conflict. “For many Argentines, an England defeat would also be seen as a political rebuke to Milei,” Morales said.In Argentina, the islands remain a sore point. Even before the war, children were taught from an early age that Malvinaswere an integral part of the national territory.“The Malvinas issue is very much in Argentines’ minds,” says Morales. “The British probably didn’t give the islands a second thought until the war. For them, [confronting Argentina] has carried a lot of weight since ’86 because of what happened in that game – the handball goal and Diego’s other brilliant goal – but not in terms of the Malvinas,” he said.Daniel Filmus, a politician and Argentina’s former secretary of matters related to the Falklands, said that the claim for the islands was embedded in Argentina’s national identity.“The feelings many Argentines have about the Malvinas are expressed in football chants. Both the anthem that became popular at the last World Cup and this year’s song include references to the islands,” he said.“Argentina is one of the few countries that, nearly 200 years after losing territory, still keeps that claim alive,” he said. “Argentines carry it with them wherever they go.”While the conflict may linger less in the collective national memory in the UK, Wednesday’s match-up has already ensured that the Falklands war is again headline news in the British media too. The Daily Telegraph reported the comments of Pablo Quirno, Argentina’s foreign minister, after he called Falklands Islanders an “artificially implanted” population in an essay requesting talks over the territory.There was also a flurry over the former England footballer Gary Lineker – the top scorer in the 1986 World Cup – mentioning the islands’ Argentinian name, Malvinas, alongside their English name on his podcast, bringing scorn from Mark Dolan, a presenter on Rupert Murdoch’s digital platform Talk, who said it was “time to show this woke fool the red card”.The Sun newspaper meanwhile noted the Argentina players were trying to concentrate on the football. “We know what the game against England means for our country, but it’s a game of football and we’ll try to address it in the best way,” it quoted midfielder Leandro Paredes as saying.

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‘Boston cone’ arrives to fanfare in first-class seat from Glasgow before planned trip to raise money for mental healthFresh off its first-class flight from Glasgow, it received a reception befitting a visiting dignitary: a bagpiper in full regalia playing inside Boston Logan international airport. Waiting to greet it were diplomats, the governor and Boston’s mayor.The guest of honor? An orange traffic cone.Tuesday’s arrival of the “Boston cone” marked the latest chapter in the city’s unlikely love affair with Scotland’s tartan army, whose habit of placing traffic cones atop statues during the team’s World Cup run last month turned the humble orange cone into one of the tournament’s defining symbols.“I have to admit, this is probably – yes, it is – my first official welcoming ceremony for a traffic cone,” Maura Healey, the Massachusetts governor, said in the airport’s erminal E, before signing her name to the cone. “But it’s a pretty special one, isn’t it? Because this cone tells the story of what happened this summer. What happened in Boston, what happened in Massachusetts.”“And special thanks to the Scots for drinking all the beer,” she added to laughter. “I do promise you, when you return … we will never again run out of beer in Massachusetts.”During Scottish fans’ World Cup visit, Boston bars struggled to keep up with the tartan army’s thirst, with some running out of beer and scrambling for emergency deliveries. The fans transformed parts of Boston into an unofficial outpost of Scotland, filling downtown with bagpipes, songs and chants while bright orange traffic cones sprouted atop some of the city’s most recognizable landmarks, from a statue of Samuel Adams outside Faneuil Hall, to the Celtics’ Red Auerbach outside TD Garden, to former mayor Kevin White near Quincy Market and even to the beloved Make Way for Ducklings statues in the Public Garden.“There are still some traffic cones atop our most important statues,” the Boston mayor Michelle Wu joked Tuesday, recalling how Boston had “unofficially become New Scotland”.The official commemorative cone, decorated with illustrations celebrating Boston and Scotland and the slogan “No Boston, No Party”, will spend the next week visiting landmarks across Massachusetts to raise money for mental health charities before returning home to Scotland.The tradition dates to Glasgow, where placing bright orange traffic cones atop public statues began as a late-night prank in the 1980s before evolving into an unofficial symbol of the country’s irreverent humor. The best-known example is the Duke of Wellington statue in the city center, where the cone has become so iconic that repeated efforts to remove it have been met with public opposition.“It’s an in-joke that’s gone too far, actually,” one of the cone’s Scottish escorts, Danny Campbell, said, laughing as he stood beside the cone in a kilt. “But no, it isn’t a joke. This is a metaphor for life.”Campbell said people can become consumed by “going to our jobs and cooking sausages and all the sort of serious stuff that adults have to do” and lose sight of what matters.“That’s what our countrymen represented when they came here,” he said, speaking of Scottish fans’ stay in Boston. “They left stomachs and cheeks sore from laughing, they cleaned up after themselves, they spread joy, and these people came together with humor and they built relationships with each other.”“This is not just a silly cone,” Campbell said. “It means love. It means love, and that is the whole point.”

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Falklands conflict adds ‘emotional’ edge to semi-finalManager has ‘no problem’ with Bellingham after outburstThomas 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.Tuchel recognises the fierce fighting spirit in Argentina’s ranks and how they will give everything to retain the title they won in 2022. They hope to do so to provide Lionel Messi with a fitting send-off at what is expected to be his last World Cup.Some of Argentina’s players chanted a song in the dressing room after their 3-1 quarter-final win over Switzerland that references the Falklands war and pledges to win the World Cup for “Las Malvinas, por Diego and por la ultima de Leo” – “for the Falklands, for Diego and for Leo’s last”.Tuchel was asked whether he was aware of the aggressive edge to the fixture. “I know some of the players, I coached some of the players,” he said. “I can sense it. You can see it. They have this kind of edge. You can sense it when they’re going a goal down, when matches are tight.“They’re almost the same group as four years ago. You can see the cohesion, you can see the sacrifice that they put into it. They believe in their style. And their style is a very emotional style. It was in Qatar and it is now.“And, of course, history … they are also fuelled by that. They are fuelled by history, it means a lot to them. So this is what we basically expect, and what we are up against. But we are also emotional, we have the grit, we have the mentality that it takes to go up against it. And we are ready for it.”Tuchel also made it clear there was no lingering issue between him and Jude Bellingham. The manager was critical of the technical side of his team’s performance in the 2-1 extra-time win over Norway in the quarter-final. Bellingham, who scored both the goals, was unimpressed when that part of the assessment was relayed to him. The midfielder said Tuchel maybe did not know what it was like to play in such a game.“Our comments come from the same place – from being competitive and having the edge when competition is on,” said Tuchel. “He [Bellingham] was just confronted with a critique of my side. I [also] called him a world-class player. I said he had world-class actions again to decide the match. I said the mentality is outstanding of this team. All of that was not part of the question.“I would maybe also bite back when I come from 120 minutes, score two goals and give literally everything that is in my body. It’s just a very normal reaction for a player of his mindset. So no problem.“I spoke to the whole team. We debriefed [the game]. I spoke to the whole team after in the dressing room, which was basically the same message. And I explained it again on Sunday evening to just move on forward. Then, in the [same] talk, we put on a new direction, a new head, which is semi-final and Argentina.”Marc Guéhi ramped up the mind games by insisting the onus is on Argentina to defend their mantle as world champions. “There isn’t pressure on us,” the defender said. “What’s the pressure? The onus is on them. They’re the world champions. They need to come out, they need to defend their title. There’s no pressure on us at all.”Guéhi has shaken off a hamstring issue and is likely to continue his partnership with John Stones in central defence, with Ezri Konsa vying with Reece James for a spot at right-back. Konsa, who started at-full back against Norway, was unable to give much insight into Argentina’s style.“We haven’t managed to watch any of their games,” he said. “I’m sure when we have the meeting tonight or tomorrow we’ll see some clips of them and see what we can do to overcome them.”

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Head coach praises his players’ ability to rise to the occasion and ‘put on a fight’ against the defending champions in the semi-final“A funny quote for you,” Thomas Tuchel says as he prepares to lead England in the World Cup semi-final against Argentina on Wednesday but peeks back at a subject that has attracted a few column inches of late. “You don’t have to be a horse to be a good jockey.”It is a line made famous by Arrigo Sacchi in 1987 when he was appointed as the manager of Milan despite being a relative unknown and having had no professional playing career. It worked out pretty well for Sacchi, just as it has done for Tuchel, who was forced to hang up his boots as a 24-year-old after a knee injury. He played no higher than the Bundesliga 2 with Stuttgart Kickers and spent time at SSV Ulm, a semi-professional club in the third tier. “I had a mediocre career at best,” Tuchel says.The context is the jibe that Jude Bellingham aimed at Tuchel after England’s 2-1 quarter-final win against Norway in Miami on Saturday. The midfielder, who scored in first-half injury time and again in extra-time amid searing heat, was unamused to hear Tuchel had criticised the technical levels of his team. “Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to play in those kind of conditions against Erling Haaland, [Martin] Ødegaard, [Antonio] Nusa, [Alexander] Sørloth,” Bellingham said.As an aside, Bellingham did not have to go in so strongly. When he did, it became a talking point and, by extension, a story. It has led to a bit of damage limitation work for those inside the England set-up, with Tuchel wanting to stress that he loved a lot of what his players did against Norway, but not all of it. He reserves the right to highlight the bad stuff if it keeps the squad on their toes.What Tuchel has done in the buildup to the Argentina game, which is one of the biggest in England’s history, perhaps the ultimate grudge match, is to turn the spotlight on to his players in a way that shows his admiration for them, that fills them with confidence. A playing career at this level is the dream of so many, including Tuchel. It is not for everyone. Tuchel’s squad are advised to remember this.“It just strikes me from time to time on the sideline right before the match that I couldn’t play here on this occasion,” Tuchel says. “I had an FA Cup final with Chelsea where you walk out with the players so I was actually standing there with them for the national anthem. And I just felt like: ‘Wow.’“It was a good moment for me to put into perspective what I then demand from just 10 metres on the other side of the sideline. It felt so different. I’m so close all the time but just being there, I thought: ‘Wow.’ I had the same moment in my first home Bundesliga match as the Borussia Dortmund coach. It was against Borussia Mönchengladbach and, two minutes before the whistle goes, I think: ‘Wow. I’m so glad I don’t have to play because I would not have the legs for it.’“You need to be a special breed if you want to take the last step and play in these moments. I cannot praise enough the players who perform, who put out physicality, who open their legs and feel free and put on a fight.”The stakes could scarcely be higher and not only because of the well-documented history with Argentina. England have played in just three World Cup semi-finals, winning in 1966 against Portugal en route to glory; losing to West Germany on penalties in 1990 and Croatia in 2018.These are the games that bring a nation to a standstill, when everybody remembers where they were and with whom they watched; the sheer depth of the emotion. It is when legends are created. Tuchel does not want to consider this part of the equation. “It is to focus on what the players need to do to become that, not to talk about the end product,” he says.Nor does he go over-the-top about Lionel Messi, the Argentina icon, who will face England for the first time in his 23-season career. Tuchel is asked whether Messi is the greatest. “One of them,” he replies. “There are so many different layers in football in so many different positions. He is right up there, for sure.”Tuchel goes on to mention how well his team played against Norway’s attacking talisman, Erling Haaland. “So we will find a way now [against Messi],” he says.Argentina have not controlled matches at this tournament, partly because of their structure, which essentially has Messi and Julián Alvarez as a front two. They can be over-run. Defensively, they are a little loose. They have flirted with disaster against lower-ranked opponents. They have been a team of moments. Sound familiar, England fans?The questions pound for Argentina. Where is the width? Are their players running enough? Are they able to stand up to the physical challenge? They were certainly jolted in this respect by Switzerland in the quarter-final. But if the defending champions have looked beatable, then nobody has beaten them. They fight until the last breath and find a way. Usually because of you know who.England have not hit the heights as a cohesive unit and yet they will enter the air-cooled stadium in Atlanta with optimism. Perhaps it is because of the gap between what they have shown and the level of which they are capable. More tangibly, this team creates chances. Even when they have trailed, they do not look finished, which is a major break from convention. They have a manager who is not slow to make changes, especially the bold ones.Tuchel can feel the excitement rising. “These last two minutes as a coach before matches and even more so now with the national anthem … I feel so alive,” he says. “I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world in these kind of moments. I can really take that in and I will again in the buildup to this game.”Then, it will be over to his thoroughbreds.

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The full-back was supposed to be busy shackling France’s vaunted front line but found time to score the killer goal at the other end“Let me loose in a prison and I’ll end up owning the place,” Pedro Porro once said. Let him loose in the penalty area and that will belong to him too. The whole world might: to him and the entire gang. When the Spain right-back burst into the box like a jail break, sprinting on to Dani Olmo’s superb layoff, and steadied himself to guide the ball into the net and score the second goal in Dallas, there was still half an hour to go in this semi-final, but it was done. They knew it was. Somehow, it was like they always had.Porro kissed the badge and raced to the corner, his teammates streaming across the pitch and off the bench towards him. He was there to protect them from Kylian Mbappé, the tournament’s top scorer and one member of that terrifying French forward line, projected as if they were the four horsemen of the apocalypse: the toughest, most fearful men in the joint. Or so it goes. Yet he won’t back down, never has, and when it came to the decisive blow, he was the one who delivered it. Instinct had taken over, if only for an instant. And what an instant it was, guaranteeing Spain would go to the World Cup final.This was Porro’s second goal here; he has scored more than he has allowed. There was a moment before the semi-final when he was asked where the balance lay between going at opponents and holding firm, not allowing them past you. “It depends on who you’re playing: against Belgium I was basically with [Jérémy] Doku all game. I only really went forward once,” he replied, adding with perfect timing: “And that was our goal.” Well played, sir. Well played all of you. Here, he went only once too, but it will be for ever. “Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this,” he said.Spain, though, could. There was a reason for that a sense of certainty when Porro scored the second. Not only because the lead was two goals but because the match was theirs. Playing out exactly as planned. Because if he was there to defend, he had done that too. Because they all had; not so much through heroism but through domination, control, mastery of the game. “We knew one of the keys was keeping the ball,” Pau Cubarsí said. France had not been able to hurt them until then and would not be able to hurt them, they knew. Not if they played their way.Which they did. When Unai Simón saved from Ousmane Dembélé on 94 minutes it was only the second time France had had a shot on target. Spain have conceded once all tournament. They were superb, a collective with no flaws. That was seen in how they took the lead and how they now held it, playing out the rest of the game, this historic occasion, with the kind of calm that hadn’t been seen since ... well, since Mikel Oyarzabal scored the penalty that started it all.Of all the people in all the world that could have stood over the penalty that put them 1-0 up, there was no one they would have rather had. “Few things in football make me nervous,” the striker said recently, and penalties are not one of them. The biggest games aren’t either. He has scored in every final he has played, including the winner against England at the Euros two years ago. From the spot, he took Real Sociedad to their first Copa del Rey title in 34 years and another one five years on. He had taken 53 and missed six, scoring 89.65%, and he wasn’t about to miss this one.The quiet man took it with the same conviction and assuredness, the same steel, with which the selección played all afternoon. “We knew that with calm we could hurt them,” Oyarzabal said. With one break for it, they killed them off. Exhausted, Porro made way late on. From the bench he watched Spain see it out to a soundtrack of olés and with a sense of complete superiority.In the stands Xavi Hernández, Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol and Sergio Ramos saw it too. When they won the World Cup in 2010, Porro had celebrated by leaping into the fountain in the Plaza de España in Don Benito, Extremadura. He was a 10-year-old kid whose parents struggled to make ends meet, working all hours, his grandad Antonio took him everywhere. Now, the day after Antonio’s birthday, he and his generation are one step from emulating that side.“This isn’t mine, it is all 26 of us” Porro said. This belonged to him and Marc Cucurella, Aymeric Laporte and Cubarsí, their other absurdly talented 19-year-old. To Rodri, who was on another plane, alongside Fabián Ruiz. To all the men who have been on the road for a month and have one more stop left, the “family”, as the coach keeps calling them, who made France look so ordinary. They may not be stars, Lamine Yamal apart, but this was a victory for the good people. Spain were Spain, just as Luis de la Fuente had asked them to be. “Tranquility is power,” he likes to say, although once in a while, when the time is just right, you have to let loose.

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France finally let loose all their attacking power in this tournament and yet when the big test came against Spain they were too openMaybe Didier Deschamps was right all along. He has been criticised over his 14 years in the France job for being too cautious, for prioritising control, for not unleashing his great fleet of attacking players. In this tournament, his last as national manager, Deschamps has relaxed – from a tactical point of view at least; he remains as grouchy as ever in his public utterances. France have played some glorious football over the past few weeks but when it came down to it, against the first truly elite side they faced, they were overrun. France could have done with being a little more Deschamps.The paradox at this tournament was always that the better France played, the more of a waste the eight years since they won the World Cup appeared. Admiration for their attacking excellence in the US has been tempered by a sense of regret for the potential beauty and joy Deschamps’ cussedness has denied the world over the past decade. This was the France they could have been all that time, playing with elan and panache, evoking legitimate comparison to the glorious France of the early-to-mid 80s.It would be a stretch now to say they stand alongside the Hungary of 1954, the Netherlands of 1974 or the Brazil of 1982 as one of the greatest sides not to win the World Cup, but there was a point before the 1-0 win over Paraguay in the last 16 when that might have seemed an appropriate comparison.Deschamps leaves the job having won a World Cup and reached another final and semi-final. He reached a Euros final and a semi-final. To get to the last four of five major tournaments over a 14-year stretch sounds like a remarkable achievement and in some ways it is. But Deschamps has been blessed with generation after generation of extraordinary players; one trophy with those players is perhaps only par. And there is an argument, voiced most vociferously by those grown weary of his football labeur, that Deschamps, for all his apparent success, held France back.Why then did he change approach? He has been portrayed by some as the arch-pragmatist, committed neither to control nor to something more improvisational, but simply to what seemed best with the players at his disposal. It is indicative of just how out of character Deschamps’ selections have seemed how radically perceptions have shifted.At the Euros two years ago, France were regarded as the dour, defensive unit, playing an unlovely version of the “tournament-ball” that had carried them to the World Cup in 2018, while Spain were the dashing update on juego de posición, capable of retaining possession in midfield but elevated by the pace and directness of their wide forwards. But in this tournament, as France sparkled, it has been Spain, their attacking options from wide diminished by injury, who have suffocated opponents.If you include the Nations League, that is three tournaments in a row in which Spain have beaten France in the semi-final, process football triumphant.There has been a theory that Deschamps has been forced into his reset by the evident brilliance of his creative options, and perhaps that is true, but France have had great attacking options – maybe not quite so many or so varied as they have now – for at least the past decade. Deschamps always seemed reluctant to let his attackers simply play, to release the handbrake; this game was the perfect demonstration of why.There were only two doubts about this France: in midfield and at left-back. It was their misfortune that those matched up with Spain’s two greatest strengths. In the most obvious and direct sense, the penalty came from Lamine Yamal drawing a clumsy foul from Lucas Digne, but on a more fundamental level it was the result of Spain’s domination of midfield.The question over the past few weeks has been whether, against stronger opponents, Deschamps would replace an attacking player with an additional midfielder, changing from 4-2-3-1 to 4-3-3. France’s creative play was so intoxicating that eventually came to seem impossible, but here it would surely have been a good idea. There were spells in the first half when Aurélien Tchouaméni and Adrien Rabiot were overrun. As it turned out, Deschamps’s solution was not to supplement the pair but to withdraw Rabiot. After a fine tournament, he had an awful first half and, with a booking, was an obvious red-card risk.What if they had played Tchouaméni, Rabiot and Manu Koné from the start? What if they had played only two of Michael Olise, Ousmane Dembélé and Bradley Barcola alongside Kylian Mbappé? Given how little any of those three contributed, it could not have been any worse. With Spain dominating midfield, the vaunted attacking quartet simply did not get the ball often enough. Spain’s structure stifled them and, with too many players committed to creativity, France were left vulnerable to transitions.In his ultimate defeat, Deschamps achieved his ultimate vindication. Talent is never to be trusted.

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Consider this a spectacular telling-off for anyone tempted to cast Spain as underdogs. How they enjoyed dishing the lesson out here, booking a showdown in New Jersey on Sunday and reducing France to passengers. Didier Deschamps’ team had been billed as champions elect but their feted attack was never in the game. For Kylian Mbappé it will be another four-year wait to reconquer the globe; he was an isolated figure, snuffed out by opponents who completely dictated after going ahead.Spain could partly thank Lucas Digne for terrible defending that conceded a penalty midway through the first half, even if there were some doubts about the award’s validity. Mikel Oyarzabal converted emphatically and the jeopardy thereafter was entirely superficial. Pedro Porro’s slickly-worked second settled the issue emphatically. Nobody will make the mistake of downplaying their prospects of seeing the job through now; France, dazed and resoundingly beaten, cut the figure of a side that could not comprehend what was happening.A football match finally broke out after the unbearably shrill DJ-led buildup that worked tirelessly to demolish any semblance of atmosphere before kick-off. A World Cup semi-final deserves better than this, the closed roof doing nothing to alleviate the oppressive acoustic effect, but the sport has found a knack of riding out most attempts to cheapen it over the past month.These teams do not bellow indistinguishable noises into the eardrums; they are sinuous, subtle, scintillating when controlling the volume themselves. It was no surprise to see Spain sticking with the starting XI that overcame Belgium, meaning Mikel Merino would again be primed for a supersub role. Deschamps enlisted the fit-again Aurélien Tchouaméni in midfield, which felt harsh on Manu Koné, and chose the directness of Bradley Barcola over Désiré Doué’s defter gifts.Barcola skipped past Pedro Porro at the first invitation following six minutes of largely sterile Spain possession. Control would be essential for Luis de La Fuente and his players. An early chance arose for Álex Baena to take a more direct route but he smacked a free-kick into the wall from right of centre.It was that kind of start, Mbappé the next to squander a decent attack when overcooking a pass towards Ousmane Dembélé. When France found some flow, Michael Olise cushioning to Dembélé before a sublime first-time ball towards Mbappé, Spain’s defence were back in numbers.Then Digne’s carelessness blew such a respectful opening spell out of the water. The left-back did not get enough purchase on a cross from the opposite side, the ball popping up off his head and allowing Lamine Yamal to contest. Lamine Yamal nudged it past Digne, seemingly via the upper portion of his arm, and was crudely felled as his opponent panicked.The referee, Iván Barton, had an easy decision to make on that front but there was still the question of whether the video assistant referee would intervene. The on-field decision stood but replays appeared to confirm Lamine Yamal had turned limb towards ball.Oyarzabal, in no mood to reject a gift, swept the spot-kick past Mike Maignan. Within minutes France’s backline had a new disruption to absorb, William Saliba pulling up and making way for Maxence Lacroix. They were having to chase Spain and could not assert any grip in midfield. When Barcola managed another nibble at Porro, he ran out of ideas and slashed wildly over.This was a malaise, Maignan presenting a clearance straight to Baena. The sequence that ensued was thrilling, Dani Olmo and Lamine Yamal combining to tee up Fabián Ruiz. It would have been a tap-in for the Paris Saint-Germain midfielder had Dayot Upamecano not appeared from nowhere to block.Spain would have to content themselves with a narrow interval lead but could consider their mission accomplished perfectly so far. For all the pre-match hype, France’s attackers had barely caused a single ripple of anxiety.Koné replaced Adrien Rabiot, a walking red card since being booked early on, for the second period. France needed 11 players but also required an uplift in every area. Instead Spain remained in total command, Oyarzabal shooting over. France could not muster enough of the ball to pose any sustained threat. When they wrought an opportunity to build down the right, Dembélé passed straight out of play.Before the hour it was time for Doué. The bet on Barcola’s speed had failed and things soon deteriorated further. While Spain had been managing proceedings consummately, they had never looked blind to another opening. Porro’s goal was worked beautifully, a tumbling Olmo managing to return his pass as a chasm opened on France’s left side. The finish was unerring; Spain were making this look easy.The scoreline would have given exactly that impression had a narrow offside call not denied Lamine Yamal a third. It was the 64th minute before Mbappé made any kind of impression, Unai Simón batting his cross-shot from the byline behind. Then he saw Marc Cucurella deflect a drive just wide but Deschamps must have been desperate for the three-minute coaching break that followed.It made little difference. Mbappé whipped a free-kick over but Ferran Torres could have added gloss for Spain, who will take some beating now.