I must make a confession. Sitting down to watch this World Cup semifinal between Spain and France, I was dreading what would happen.
Les Bleus had looked unstoppable, while La Roja had been winning but rarely impressing. Kylian Mbappé was leading the Golden Boot race with eight goals, while our superstar – Lamine Yamal – had looked up and down and had yet to have a true game-changing performance the entire tournament.
I had resigned myself to a valiant, face-saving loss – that is until the match started in what was a 2-0 win for La Roja.
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Everything looked familiar as a Spain fan: Dominant possession, strong defense and very little to genuinely worry about. This was alarming for the first few matches of the World Cup – particularly the opener against Cape Verde – but then the team steadily marched onward, either openly or deceptively dominating opponents – with a bit of luck on its side at times – on its way to the semifinals.
