{"id":527759,"date":"2026-07-15T19:14:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T19:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/527759\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T19:14:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T19:14:21","slug":"france-v-spain-spain-qualify-for-world-cup-final-after-clinical-semi-final-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/527759\/","title":{"rendered":"France v Spain: Spain qualify for World Cup final after clinical semi-final performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oyarzabal hammered the ball past France goalkeeper Mike Maignan for his fifth goal of the World Cup to leave France trailing for the first time in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Things went from bad to worse for France when they lost defender William Saliba to injury.<\/p>\n

There was a bizarre moment just before halftime when Barton awarded a foul to France after Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 was taken down, although he changed his mind as Spain took a 1-0 lead in to halftime.<\/p>\n

France knew they were going to have to make history to make the final with only two teams having ever advanced in a World Cup semi-final after trailing at halftime: Argentina v Italy in 1990 and Croatia overcoming England in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"KylianKylian Mbappe reacts after missing a chance against Spain. Photo \/ APF<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t meant to be as Spain doubled their lead when Porro, who was awarded man of the match, linked up with Dani Olmo on the edge of the box and collected the return ball before coolly slotting past Maignan.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, Yamal found the back of the net, but his goal was ruled out after being deemed to be offside.<\/p>\n

France threw everything at Spain but they couldn\u2019t score to reduce the deficit and set up a grandstand finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave it our all in order just to go through to the final,\u201d Porro said after the game. \u201cWe knew that we\u2019re a very tough team, we\u2019re doing things really well. This is our team, it\u2019s not about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

For France, the third-place play-off awaits them on Sunday in Miami in what will be Didier Deschamps\u2019 final match in charge of the side.<\/p>\n

Under Deschamps, France won the 2018 World Cup in Russia before losing to Lionel Messi\u2019s Argentina four years ago in Qatar.<\/p>\n

For Spain, they will face either England, in what would be a repeat of the 2024 European champs final, or defending World Cup champions in the final on Monday in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Go all in to unlock every Fifa World Cup 2026 match with a TVNZ+ Event Pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oyarzabal hammered the ball past France goalkeeper Mike Maignan for his fifth goal of the World Cup to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,16414,10542,25056,31178,5904,260756,2082,1221,42,9690,43,1523,6777,260757,66755,238035,5500,2029,165,210,40,38,41,39,377],"class_list":["post-527759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-clinical","tag-cup","tag-dallas","tag-favourites","tag-final","tag-footballing","tag-for","tag-france","tag-headlines","tag-masterclass","tag-news","tag-over","tag-performance","tag-pretournament","tag-qualify","tag-secondever","tag-semifinal","tag-spain","tag-their","tag-through","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}