DALLAS, Texas\u00a0\u2014 France coach Didier Deschamps insisted he still sees Spain as World Cup favorites on Monday ahead of Les Bleus’ blockbuster semi-final against the European champions.<\/p>\n
France take on Spain at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Tuesday in a match widely seen as a collision of the best two teams in the tournament.<\/p>\n
While Deschamps’ side have 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 minnows Cape Verde in their opening game.<\/p>\n
Deschamps, though, maintains that France \u2014\u00a0beaten by Spain in their last two meetings \u2014\u00a0will 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 have confirmed that they are the favourites.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I don’t want to add extra pressure to (Spain coach) Luis (de la Fuente) and their team \u2014\u00a0he knows very well that people are expecting great things of Spain.<\/p>\n “But Spain can attack well, and they can defend very well. They’ve only conceded one goal in the last six or seven matches.”<\/p>\n Spain coach 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 semi-final,” 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 mean 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 quality of the two teams offensively, I think we could think that is 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 semi-final in 2024 and the UEFA Nations League last year.<\/p>\n “We know the strength of the opposing team. We have our own strengths,” Deschamps said.<\/p>\n “Have I studied Yamal and his assets? Yes, he’s one of the players that can really make a difference on the pitch.<\/p>\n “And all opponents should try to limit the strength of the other team, but we have many solutions.<\/p>\n “When it comes to a one-on-ones 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 quarter-final win over Morocco late in the second half after taking a knock, was “100 percent” fit for the semi-final.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS, Texas\u00a0\u2014 France coach Didier Deschamps insisted he still sees Spain as World Cup favorites on Monday ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,8079,102582,102,131778,131780,6736,131784,124304,131785,131783,107698,131787,131781,131779,9611,27,131786,131782,3692],"class_list":["post-372087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-att-stadium","tag-cape-verde","tag-dallas","tag-didier-deschamps","tag-european-champions","tag-france","tag-great-national-teams","tag-kylian-mbappe","tag-lamine-yamal","tag-luis-de-la-fuente","tag-morocco","tag-quarter-final","tag-scintillating-performances","tag-semi-final","tag-spain","tag-texas","tag-uefa-nations-league","tag-underdog","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372087","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=372087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}