European peak at World Cup 2026 semi-finals
Spain is the reigning European champion and France has reached 2 consecutive World Cup finals before. In the national team level arena, for many years France and Spain have always been the two most strong teams representing the old continent.
In recent EUROs, Les Bleus's form has not been really good, but once they step into the World Cup arena, they are always the top championship candidates. In the previous 2 World Cups, France won in 2018 and only lacked luck on penalties to get another gold cup in 2022. If they continue to reach the final this time, they will be the first team of the 21st century to play 3 consecutive World Cup finals, the clearest proof of the strength of Didier Deschamps' team at the biggest football festival on the planet.
With Spain, they have been away from the world peak for 16 years, since the first championship in history in 2010 in South Africa. La Roja then struggled for many years in both EURO and World Cup. Only when Luis de la Fuente took over, did Spain gradually reaffirm its absolute position in the old continent. They won the Nations League 2023 and EURO 2024. Even in the Nations League 2025 final, La Roja was just less lucky than Portugal when they lost in the penalty shootout.
After the quarter-final victory over Belgium, Lamine Yamal declared very firmly, if there is a team that makes France afraid, it is Spain! In the two most recent tournaments, EURO 2024 and Nations League 2025, France both lost to Spain, so the bullfighting team has reason to be confident before this rematch.
The showdown of top stars
Kylian Mbappe is the most mentioned name of France in the 2026 World Cup journey to date. The Real Madrid striker has 8 goals in this year's tournament, equal to legend Lionel Messi. When reaching the semi-finals, it is certain that every team still has 2 matches ahead, so the possibility of Mbappe increasing his personal achievements is real.
At the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Mbappe was always the top outstanding star of Les Bleus. This time too, but in addition to his role as an attacking star, Mbappe also wears the captain's armband. Leadership is more clearly felt in the 27-year-old striker and all his teammates around are happy to serve so that Mbappe is the most shining.
In the Les Bleus squad participating in this tournament, there are countless top attacking stars in the world, but all have taken a few steps back when necessary to make way for Mbappe. This is the greatest success in building the role of captain Deschamps so that his beloved student can confidently dominate.
On the other side, Lamine Yamal is still the most mentioned name in the attack of the European champions. However, the performance of the 19-year-old star at this year's tournament is not as expected. Before the tournament, Yamal suffered an injury but was forced to play throughout the group stage journey because Spain faced more difficulties than expected after the opening match draw with Cape Verde. Up to the semi-finals, the Barcelona striker has only scored 1 goal against Saudi Arabia in the group stage.
In terms of form, Yamal is far behind Mbappe at this year's tournament, but don't forget that in the past 2 years, this striker has always had a habit of winning against opponents. In the past two seasons, Barcelona has always surpassed Real Madrid in the domestic title races. At EURO 2024, Yamal's superb curling shot contributed greatly to helping Spain eliminate France in the semi-finals. In the semi-finals of the Nations League 2025, Yamal also scored in the match Spain won against France 5-4.
Super attack and defense
Before the semi-finals, the French team had scored 16 goals against opponents. A noteworthy point in this statistic is that 100% of the goals were scored by strikers. Les Bleus also have options for midfielders and defenders to score goals, but at this point, their too diverse attack can still solve everything themselves.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Spain has only conceded 1 goal in the quarter-final match against Belgium. La Roja's strength in defense does not necessarily come from the top-class defensive stars in the world. The midfield system holding the ball and rotating stably has greatly reduced the pressure on the shield in front of goalkeeper Unai Simon's goal.
To limit the opponent's strength, Spain needs to continue to maintain this playing style, so that the French strikers have as little ball as possible.
