France fortress falls

Spain’s Pedro Porro scores his team’s second goal to seal a 2-0 win over France in the World Cup semifinal at Dallas Stadium, USA

The hot favourite of the pundits and experts was dismantled brick by brick as the world watched in amazement and disbelief

Outplayed, outsmarted, outfoxed, outpaced and ousted. In a nutshell that was the story at the end of the World Cup semifinal at the Dallas Stadium in Texas, USA on Tuesday night when Spain knocked out the France 2-0 to enter the final of the global football showpiece for only the second time in history.

France was the favourite of many, from common folks to the experts, media pundits, bookmakers and punters from the Round of 32, Round of 16, the quarter finals and right up to the podium on July 19 in New Jersey, USA expecting the World Cup to be taken back to Paris as they did in 2018.

But the Spanish proved everyone, who tipped France to win, wrong from the word go. Surprisingly it was not only that France lost, but only one team Spain played some superlative polished football as if the occasion was the final.

While the best team of the tournament was defeated, Spain did not put a foot wrong and got everything right to even force out a penalty in the 22nd minute of play that was taken by Mikel Oyarzabal and found the back of the net just when many thought France were favourites to walk away as the winner.

But taking a 1-0 lead Spain had enough momentum to surge ahead and dominate the match forcing France to play second fiddle. France playmaker Kylian Mbappe was nowhere near his famed brilliance and never looked threatening to Spain as a packed Dallas stadium witnessed the ball moving in only one direction until Pedro Porro scored the second goal for Spain to take what was an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the 58th minute. With Spain keeping the ball to themselves as if they owned it with some excellent dribbling and passing, there was no way France could have staged a comeback as the precious minutes ticked by.

Many of France’s supporters could not believe their team was being brought down onto their knees by a team from Spain that not many rated could win the World Cup with France and the defending champion Argentina hanging around. The result made Spain enter a World Cup final for only the second time after they beat the Netherlands 1-0 in the 2010 final in Johannesburg, South Africa.