France arrive as the tournament favorites for a reason: a third straight World Cup semifinal, Kylian Mbappé tied atop the Golden Boot at 8 goals, and a squad that has looked mortal exactly once (69 minutes of Paraguay's defensive masterclass) in six matches. Spain arrive having just lost their perfect record — Charles De Ketelaere ended a six-match, tournament-long clean sheet in the quarterfinal — but they also arrive having won anyway, through a substitute who has now decided back-to-back knockout matches from the bench. This is, on paper, the best semifinal the bracket could have produced: the tournament's most talented individual attacker against its most talented collective.
Didier Deschamps' side have needed a bench contribution of their own in three of their last four knockout matches — Doué's penalty-winning cameo, Dembélé's sealer against Morocco — and there are quiet questions about whether this squad's front three (Mbappé, Dembélé, and whichever of Barcola or Olise starts wide) can be shut down by a defense as organized as Spain's. Mbappé remains the best individual finisher left in the tournament. He has not, however, faced a back line quite like this one yet.
Luis de la Fuente's side has more individual quality at more positions than anyone left in the bracket — Lamine Yamal, Pedri, Fabián Ruiz, Nico Williams — and, for the first time all tournament, something to prove after conceding. Expect a spell of the exact suffocating possession football that carried Spain to the final in 2010, the last time they reached this stage.
France draw first blood, of course they do — Kylian Mbappé finishing a trademark low drive across goal in the first half, his ninth of the tournament and, for the moment, the outright Golden Boot lead all to himself. Spain respond almost immediately: Lamine Yamal cutting inside from the right and curling one into the far corner to level it before halftime — the first of what will be a defining night for him.
The second half brings the moment nobody saw coming: Michael Olise, quietly excellent all tournament without a goal to show for it, finally gets his — a driven finish from the edge of the box that puts France back in front and gives him his first World Cup goal after three assists in the group and knockout stages combined. It looks, for a long stretch, like enough. Then Yamal completes his brace late on, ghosting in at the back post to force extra time at 2-2.
And in extra time, with both benches nearly empty and both defenses exhausted, Spain turn — again — to Mikel Merino. The substitute striker-turned-midfielder comes on and does what he has now done in three consecutive knockout rounds: scores the goal that ends France's tournament and sends Spain through, 3-2, to a first World Cup final appearance since they won the whole thing in 2010. The Couch does not know how to explain Merino at this point. Nobody does. He has simply decided that knockout football belongs to him.
A trademark low finish across goal — his 9th of the tournament, and the outright Golden Boot lead, at least for the next 24 hours.
A brace either side of the second Olise goal — one to level it before the break, one late to force extra time. The teenager keeps showing up when it matters most.
His first World Cup goal, after three assists without one — a driven finish that, for a while, looks like the semifinal winner.
A hat-trick of a different kind: the decisive substitute goal in three consecutive knockout rounds. The Couch has officially stopped being surprised.
He wasn't a starter in the Round of 16. He wasn't a starter in the quarterfinal. And yet Merino has been the single most decisive player left in this tournament from the bench — a genuine super-sub hat-trick across three straight knockout rounds would be one of the great individual stories of this entire World Cup, regardless of what shirt he starts in.