![\"France](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/news-p.v1.20260714.e8ec170adf9543cf8c4108fb6c306716_P1.jpg\")
France head coach Didier Deschamps responds to a question during a news conference in Arlington, Texas, Monday. (AP-Yonhap) <\/p>\n France head coach Didier Deschamps responds to a question during a news conference in Arlington, Texas, Monday. (AP-Yonhap) <\/p>\n
DALLAS (AFP) — France coach Didier Deschamps insisted he still sees Spain as the World Cup favorite on Monday ahead of Les Bleus’ blockbuster semifinal against the European champion.<\/p>\n
France takes on Spain at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Tuesday local time in a match widely seen as a collision of the two best teams in the tournament.<\/p>\n
While Deschamps’ side has lit up the World Cup with a string of scintillating performances, Spain’s campaign has built momentum gradually following a shock 0-0 draw against minnow Cape Verde in its opening game.<\/p>\n
Deschamps, though, maintains that France — beaten by Spain in its last two meetings — will be the underdog on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“Forget about the first game against Cape Verde,” Deschamps said of Spain’s campaign. “Ever since then, Spain has confirmed that it is the favorite.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to add extra pressure to (Spain coach) Luis (de la Fuente) and his team — he knows very well that people are expecting great things from Spain.<\/p>\n
“But Spain can attack well, and it can defend very well. It has only conceded one goal in the last six or seven matches.”<\/p>\n
Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, meanwhile, smiled when asked for his response to Deschamps’ comments at an eve-of-game press conference.<\/p>\n
“Since the beginning, I’ve always said that the fact that people say we’re favorites or not doesn’t mean anything,” De la Fuente told reporters. “It doesn’t. It’s not decisive.<\/p>\n
“We are two great national teams facing each other, just as there are two great national teams facing each other in the other semifinal,” De la Fuente added, stressing that his team was comfortable living with the pressure to succeed.<\/p>\n
“Regardless of whether we’re favorites or not, it doesn’t create additional pressure,” he said. “We have that pressure anyway. We want to do well for our country.”<\/p>\n
Deschamps, meanwhile, believes Tuesday’s game has all the makings of a classic.<\/p>\n
“With the offensive quality of the two teams, I think it’s going to be a spectacular game,” he said.<\/p>\n
Deschamps is also not overly concerned by the threat posed by Spain winger Lamine Yamal, who scored in La Roja’s victories over France in the European Championship semifinal in 2024 and the UEFA Nations League last year.<\/p>\n
“We know the strengths of the opposing team. We have our own strengths,” Deschamps said.<\/p>\n
“Have I studied Yamal and his strengths? Yes, he’s one of the players who can really make a difference on the field.”<\/p>\n
“And every opponent should try to limit the strengths of the other team, but we have many solutions.”<\/p>\n
“When it comes to one-on-one situations, it could be tough. But having a one-on-one against some of my players is not an easy task either.”<\/p>\n
Deschamps confirmed that France captain Kylian Mbappe, who left the quarterfinal victory over Morocco late in the second half after taking a knock, was “100 percent” fit for the semifinal.<\/p>\n
khnews@heraldcorp.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France head coach Didier Deschamps responds to a question during a news conference in Arlington, Texas, Monday. (AP-Yonhap)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-371905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}