{"id":6641,"date":"2026-07-13T20:14:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=6641"},"modified":"2026-07-13T20:14:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:14:29","slug":"put-mbappe-vs-yamal-aside-keepers-and-defenders-will-decide-france-vs-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=6641","title":{"rendered":"Put Mbapp\u00e9 vs. Yamal Aside. Keepers And Defenders Will Decide France vs. Spain."},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Every preview of Tuesday&#8217;s World Cup semifinal leads with the same two names. Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, eight goals, chasing history. Lamine Yamal, the heir apparent. Fair enough. Now let&#8217;s talk about the men whose job is to ruin all of that, because they&#8217;re the ones who will actually decide this game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Start with the numbers, because Spain&#8217;s are absurd. One goal conceded in six matches. Six consecutive clean sheets to open the tournament, the longest shutout streak in World Cup history. Unai Sim\u00f3n went 649 minutes without picking the ball out of his net, breaking a record that had stood since Nadine Angerer&#8217;s 622. The streak finally died in the 41st minute against Belgium, when Charles De Ketelaere headed one in, and the Spanish defense almost looked incredulous.<\/p>\n<p><span>Pau Cubars\u00ed, Aymeric Laporte and Marc Cucurella for Spain.(Photo by Alex Pantling &#8211; FIFA\/FIFA via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The men in front of Sim\u00f3n deserve credit. Aymeric Laporte and Pau Cubars\u00ed are the tournament&#8217;s most composed center-back pairing: a 32-year-old who has seen everything next to a 19-year-old who plays like he has. Cubars\u00ed&#8217;s calm on the ball, a signature of a Barcelona defender, is Spain&#8217;s escape valve, and teams that press him tend to regret it two passes later. Marc Cucurella and Pedro Porro bomb forward on the flanks, which is both Spain&#8217;s weapon and Spain&#8217;s problem. We&#8217;ll get to that.<\/p>\n<p><span>Dayot Upamecano and William Saliba have been solid for France. (Photo by Dan Mullan\/Getty Images)<\/span> <!--&gt;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>France's numbers are quieter but trending the right way. Didier Deschamps' side leaked goals to Senegal and Norway in the group stage\u2014sloppy stuff, switched-off moments\u2014then slammed the door with three straight knockout clean sheets against Sweden, Paraguay and Morocco. Mike Maignan barely broke a sweat in any of them. William Saliba and Dayot Upamecano have grown into the most physically dominant central pairing left on the field. Nobody is running through them, and good luck going over them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The concerns for France live in the margins. The fullback situation is fine: Jules Kound\u00e9 on the right, Lucas Digne or Theo Hern\u00e1ndez on the left. Meanwhile, Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni, the shield in front of the back four, missed the Morocco win with a thigh issue. If he's not right, Saliba and Upamecano get a lot more exposure to Pedri in the exact zones Spain lives in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Then there's recent history, which Spain will happily bring up. The last two meetings were both semifinals, and Spain won both: 2-1 at Euro 2024, and a 2025 Nations League game that finished 5-4. That scoreline is bizarre and unexpected for two defenses that good. France's back line spent that entire night chasing Spanish movement and never caught up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>So who has the edge? On paper, Spain. The record streak, the single goal conceded, a keeper in the form of his life. But paper isn't necessarily reality. Spain's whole structure asks Cucurella and Porro to live in the opponent's half while Rodri cleans up behind them, and nothing they've faced this month resembles France in transition. France will punish the full-backs swiftly for wandering forward. Sweden and Morocco couldn't make France pay for momentary lapses. Mbapp\u00e9 and Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 thrive on that space, and the grass behind Spain's fullbacks is exactly where they do their best work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The flip side: France's defense hasn't faced anyone who moves the ball like Spain, and Maignan has been so protected that we don't actually know what kind of night he has in him. We're about to find out which of these units has been great and which has merely been unbothered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The strikers will take the headlines Tuesday. Somewhere in this semifinal, either Sim\u00f3n or Maignan will make the save that sends a nation to a World Cup final. Watch the other end. That's where the tournament gets decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:var(-color-text-primary);font-family:inherit;font-size:18px;font-weight:700;line-height:1.25;margin:0;min-width:0\">Expert World Cup Predictions For France-Spain, England-Argentina Semifinals<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:var(-color-text-primary);font-family:inherit;font-size:18px;font-weight:700;line-height:1.25;margin:0;min-width:0\">Spain vs. France Combined XI: Mbapp\u00e9, Yamal Lead Star-Studded Team<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:var(-color-text-primary);font-family:inherit;font-size:18px;font-weight:700;line-height:1.25;margin:0;min-width:0\">Argentina, Spain, France, England: A World Cup Semifinal Round Like No Other<\/p>\n\n--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Every preview of Tuesday&#8217;s World Cup semifinal leads with the same two names. Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, eight goals, chasing history. Lamine Yamal, the heir apparent. Fair enough. Now let&#8217;s talk about the men whose job is to ruin all of that, because they&#8217;re the ones who will actually decide this game. Start [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}