The last four, and why this field is unlike any before it
Forty-eight nations began this tournament. Four remain — and for the first time, every survivor occupies a place in FIFA's top four. It is also only the third occasion, after 1970 and 1990, on which each semifinalist has already lifted the trophy at some point in its history.
The bracket settled itself across four days of quarterfinals. France saw off Morocco 2-0 in Foxborough. Spain squeezed past Belgium 2-1 in Los Angeles. England required extra time to subdue Norway 2-1 in Miami, and Argentina, hours later in Kansas City, wore down a Switzerland side reduced to ten men, winning 3-1 — also in extra time.
The fixtures:
- France vs. Spain — Tuesday, July 14, 3 p.m. ET, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas
- England vs. Argentina — Wednesday, July 15, 3 p.m. ET, Mercedes-Benz Stadium , Atlanta
The third-place match is Saturday, July 18 in Miami; the final is Sunday, July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
SEMIFINAL 1 — FRANCE vs. SPAIN
France's strength: a forward line that never runs out of names
Volume and variety define France this summer. Kylian Mbappé has eight goals and three assists. Ousmane Dembélé has five, a tally that includes a first-half hat trick in the 4-1 group win over Norway. Michael Olise has supplied five assists. Behind them, Désiré Doué and Bradley Barcola form a bench most nations would start.
France have won all six matches and scored 16 goals. One correction worth making, because several outlets have fumbled it: that is not the tournament high. Opta has Argentina out in front on 17.
What makes the shape of this France team notable is how little it resembles the Deschamps blueprint. Fourteen years into the job, the manager's teams have generally been engineered to manage risk and strike on the counter. This one attacks with far less inhibition — and Deschamps departs after the tournament, which may be the simplest explanation for the loosened reins. Tuesday will be his 26th World Cup match in charge, taking him past Helmut Schön's record.
The flaw fans should watch for: Spain keep taking the ball away
Recent history is not on France's side. Across 38 meetings all-time, Al Jazeera counts 18 Spanish wins to France's 13, with seven draws. More to the point, Spain have won the last two: the Euro 2024 semifinal, 2-1, and a nine-goal Nations League last-four tie in 2025 that finished 5-4. Twice, in other words, Spain have terminated a French campaign at precisely this stage — a fact Luis de la Fuente pointedly reminded everyone of when he called Tuesday's meeting "a final before the final".
The mechanism behind that record is likely to repeat. Spain do not try to trade blows; they decline to hand over the ball. With Rodri anchoring midfield, the transitional moments that Mbappé and Barcola live on simply stop arriving. A France side forced to unpick a set defense for ninety minutes is a considerably less alarming France side. ESPN's tactical read frames the game as roughly ten counterattacking chances France must convert — and whether Spain's midfield can smother them first.
Fitness adds a wrinkle. Mbappé caught a knock to his ankle late against Morocco and came off in the 77th minute with ice strapped to it, though he told reporters he was "completely fine". Aurélien Tchouaméni, hurt in training on July 3, has missed the last two matches and remains a major doubt; Manu Koné is a lesser one. Neither camp carries a suspension.
Spain's flaw: the goals arrive late, or barely at all
Spain's weakness is the inverse of France's. They win, but they win narrowly. Take away the 4-0 against Saudi Arabia and the 3-0 against Austria and the margin has been a single goal every time — twice courtesy of substitute Mikel Merino, who struck in the 90th minute against Portugal and the 88th against Belgium. That double act made him, per Opta, the first player in the tournament's history to settle two knockout ties after coming off the bench. A team that keeps requiring a rescue in the final five minutes is one poor evening from not being rescued.
The numbers
Unai Simón's shutout streak ran to 650 minutes before Charles De Ketelaere headed Belgium level in the quarterfinal — the longest in World Cup history, surpassing Walter Zenga's 517 from 1990, according to beIN Sports. Note the nuance often lost in the retelling: five of those clean sheets came in this tournament, with the run beginning in Qatar in 2022. That single De Ketelaere header is the only goal Spain have conceded all summer. Since the 2018 World Cup began, Opta records just one defeat in 27 major-tournament fixtures for La Roja.
The supercomputer favors France, though not emphatically. Opta's freshest projection gives Les Bleus a 34.6% chance of winning the trophy against Spain's 23.8%, with France reaching the final in 57.1% of runs. An earlier pass of the same model, cited by Al Jazeera, had 34.05% and 23.45%. The numbers drift; the shape does not. Call it France one-in-three, Spain one-in-four.
Lamine Yamal, who meets Mbappé here as he does twice a season in the Clásico, was unbothered: "we're not afraid at all".
SEMIFINAL 2 — ENGLAND vs. ARGENTINA
Argentina's strength: winning matches they are not winning
Six games, six victories — Opta records it as the longest winning run Argentina have managed at any World Cup. They are unbeaten in 12 tournament matches stretching back to the opening-day loss in Qatar. And their semifinal record is spotless: five appearances, five progressions, the only 100% mark at this stage in the competition's history.
They also score. Seventeen goals leads the field, exactly three in each of the last four matches, and one more equals the 18 they managed in 1930.
The route, though, has been punishing. Cape Verde took them to extra time. Egypt led 2-0 with roughly ten minutes remaining before Cristian Romero and Lionel Messi levelled inside four minutes and Enzo Fernández won it in the 93rd. Against Switzerland the score stood at 1-1 after ninety — Alexis Mac Allister had opened, Dan Ndoye replied — until Julián Álvarez struck from range in the 112th and Lautaro Martínez added a third in stoppage time at the end of extra time.
That match carried an asterisk. Breel Embolo was dismissed in the 72nd minute after a VAR review under the "mistaken identity" protocol found he had simulated contact from Leandro Paredes; because he was already booked, the second yellow ended his game and left Switzerland with ten men. Swiss coach Murat Yakin was scathing. Even Lionel Scaloni conceded that "luck was on our side".
England's strength: they finally have a second scorer
For years the complaint was that England were Harry Kane and little else. No longer. Kane and Jude Bellingham have six goals apiece — the first time, Opta says, that two players from one country have both reached six at a single World Cup. Bellingham scored twice against Mexico in the Round of 16 and twice more against Norway; only Kane and Gary Lineker have produced more multi-goal World Cup games for England, and no midfielder in the tournament's history bar Peru's Téofilo Cubillas has more than Bellingham.
The flaw: England have been surviving, not controlling
Every knockout tie has been an escape. Two late Kane goals rescued a 2-1 win over DR Congo. Mexico were beaten 3-2 with ten men in the Azteca. Norway needed extra time. Thomas Tuchel described that quarterfinal victory as "lucky" and has said plainly that he wants more from the players around his two scorers, per ESPN.
That is exactly the profile Argentina are equipped to exploit. Messi's role has become a deep-lying one: drop off, collect between the lines, and dismantle a high back four from behind it. If England press and leave a seam, the seam is the match.
The team news doesn't ease things. Jarell Quansah remains unavailable, serving the second match of a two-game ban for the red card he collected against Mexico. Jordan Henderson broke his arm during the celebrations after that same match and needed surgery — he was on the bench in Miami but is not expected to feature. Declan Rice was withdrawn at half-time against Norway with illness. And the right-back position remains unresolved between Djed Spence, Ezri Konsa and a recently-fit Reece James.
Argentina's flaw: the miles are adding up
Three straight knockout ties settled in the closing minutes, two of them lasting 120. Whether thirty-nine-year-old legs and a squad that has played extra time twice in a week can withstand an Atlanta July is the live question — though it should be said that reporting on this is not unanimous. Goal describes Argentina as arriving in excellent physical shape, while ESPN's panel is split on whether they are running down.
The numbers
Opta cannot separate them: England reach the final in 52.9% of simulations, Argentina in 47.1%. Within ninety minutes, it is 39.1% England, 31.6% Argentina, 29.3% draw. History tilts English — 14 meetings, six England wins, six draws and only two defeats, the last of those in normal time coming in 1986. Remarkably, at 39 and in a sixth World Cup, Messi has never played England. He is also now the World Cup's all-time leading scorer on 21 goals, having passed Miroslav Klose's 16 during this run.
Kane, assuming he starts, will win a 121st cap and become England's most-capped outfield player, ahead of Wayne Rooney. Scaloni is bidding to become only the seventh manager to take charge of two World Cup finals. Tuchel is chasing something rarer still: a final with a country not his own, which no manager has achieved since Ernst Happel did it with the Netherlands in 1978.
A note on style: Europe vs. South America
Three European sides and one South American, and the stylistic divide is clean.
The European teams are, in different ways, structural. Spain treat possession as a defensive act — take the ball away and the opponent cannot injure you. France are vertical and athletic, engineered to attack space at pace. England are a framework built to hold together around two exceptional individuals. In each case the system is the mechanism, and the player operates inside it.
Argentina invert the arrangement. The structure exists to serve Messi, and around him is a group that has learned, above all, to survive: at ease in chaos, lethal when losing, unhurried when drawing. The Egypt comeback is not a thing a well-drilled European side tends to produce. It is what a team with a different relationship to panic produces. Whether that instinct holds up through a fourth consecutive round of late drama is Wednesday's real question.
