Olise isolated, midfield domination. How Spain breached France's stingy defence

The French had waltzed into the semifinals of the FIFA World Cup 2026 with a perfect record in the knockout rounds. Across six matches, Didier Deschamps' France had conceded just twice. That was until they met Spain, who put two goals past Mike Maignan in 60 minutes.

Mikel Oyarzabal scored the first from the penalty spot in the 22nd minute after Lamine Yamal was kicked down by an unaware Lucas Digne. Pedro Porro, dashing down from his right back position, kept running to a deft touch from Dani Olmo before finishing with aplomb at the near post in the 58th minute.

The French could argue that they were hamstrung by an injury to William Saliba (30th minute) and an early yellow card for Adrien Rabiot (8th minute) for fouling Olmo on the edge of the box.

The fact that the Le Bleus cannot hide from is that they were outrun, outpassed, outfoxed by their neighbours. Spain's passing game is well documented, and going into the semifinal, Luis de la Fuente's side had put together at least 800 passes more than the French. Spain's midfield maestro Rodri had run the most distance of any player in the tournament, almost 10 km more than the most agile Frenchman, Michael Olise.

Spain cut off the supplier - Olise - to France's enviable attack made up of Kylian Mbappe, Bradley Barcola and Ousmane Dembele. Olise had the best defensive linebreak accuracy (76%) among players who attempted at least 20 such passes in the tournament. But he was quickly closed down by an aggressive Spanish midfield, was dispossessed twice and not allowed to play his forward passes at will.

Spain, on the other hand, passed with purpose and pressed hard when not in possession. The Spaniards won more than double the total aerial duels (17 vs 7) in the match, and put in more tackles (19 vs 14) than the French.

Ahead of the match, the battle was billed as one between equals. World No 1 vs World No 3. But the France that showed up in Dallas were no match for Spain.