Recap : Spain 2-1 France; Euros 2024

France were up against Spain in the first semi-finals of the Euros 2024. Spain came into this after beating hosts Germany while France overcame Portugal on penalties in the quarter-finals. While La Roja had been one of the best sides of the tournament so far, France had to toil their way to this stage, scoring just 0 non-penalty goals all tournament so far.

Didier Deschamps decided to bench Antoine Griezmann for Adrian Rabiot and went with a front three of Randal Kolo Muani, Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele. The gamble didn’t pay off as Dembele proved to be very ineffective while there was a clear lack of synergy between Kolo Muani and Mbappe for large parts.

France opened the scoring via Kolo Muani combining with Real Madrid’s Mbappe in one of the first attacks of the game. The former PSG man’s cross was met well by Muani at the far post as Deschamps’ side went ahead inside 10 minutes. Spain didn’t trail the game for long as a magisterial strike from Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal put them level at 21st minute and a Dani Olmo strike was bundled home by Jules Kounde in the 25th minute. Yamal became the youngest goalscorer at the men’s European Championships with that goal today.

Beyond this point, Spain managed the game very well. Their midfield duo of Rodri and Fabian Ruiz completely dominated the territory and circulated possession very well limiting France’s share on the ball. Even when the 2018 World Champions did get the ball, it resulted in nothing as their final ball was very poor. The consistent crosses were wasteful rather than targeted and didn’t amount to anything.

Mbappe was involved in France’s opening goal, helping create their first open-play goal of the tournament this year. He was France’s most threatening player on most occassions but didn’t really impose himself on the game. There were some wasteful actions in possession from the 25-year-old. Spain chose to outnumber him whenever he got on the ball and managed to neutralize him to a large extent. He was still able to produce some good moments with his brilliant first touch and acceleration but those resulted in nothing at the end.

Aurelien Tchouameni started at the base of the midfield for France alongside Rabiot and Kante. The Madrid youngster didn’t have the best of the games and was seen chasing shadows against Rodri and Ruiz. He was dragged into challenges by the movements of Olmo and Morata and was shown a yellow card for one such challenge as well.

Eduardo Camavinga came on in the 62nd minute to replace Rabiot. The 21-year-old didn’t impact the game much but added tried to add a bit of zap in France’s passing into the final third. With France seeing just 39% of the ball in the second half, both Tchouameni and Camavinga failed to impress much with the ball. Spanish press made it difficult for them to settle on it as well.

France crash out of the tournament after an abysmal attacking showing at the tournament while Spain now await the winner of England and Netherlands to meet them in the finals of the tournament.