The biggest favorite to win the title was completely crushed! France lost without a fight, and Yamal actually pulled it off!

I stayed up late to watch the US-Canada-Mexico semifinal.

Spain sent France, the biggest title favorite, home with a 2-0 victory.

Before the match, everyone online was shouting "France stops Spain," but in the end, it turned into "Spain blossoms."

Yet this can't be labeled an upset—that would be a huge disrespect to the Spanish bullfighters.

From the Euro comeback, the 9-goal thriller in the Nations League, to the clean-sheet win in the World Cup—same stage, same opponent, three different ways for the Gallic Roosters to lose... Isn't that enough to prove the point?

It just goes to show:

1. Spain's record from Euro 2024 to the 2026 World Cup is 13 wins and 1 draw—the value of Cape Verde is still rising.

2. Yamal talked a big game before the match, but he actually has the right to be cocky—he pulled it off.

Whether between teams or between him and Mbappé... it's just too "harsh."

After all, Bro Di is a hardcore basketball fan, so when watching World Cup matches, I often use basketball thinking to interpret everything happening on the pitch.

In fact, there are many commonalities between these two team sports that emphasize physical confrontation.

For example, the feeling of this Spain-France battle can also be explained through many basketball concepts.

At many moments, I thought of the feeling the Chinese men's basketball team used to have when facing European powerhouses.

It's a deep sense of "desperation."

To put it in the words of us fans:Getting played like a dog—without fouling, you can't even touch the ball.

You want to fight, but with such a huge gap in strength, you can't even compete on the same level.

Mbappé and Dembélé are full of energy, but in the end? They can't unleash it.

Back to this match, France's strength lies in the speed of their counterattacks and the luxury lineup of their forwards.

Against ordinary opponents, they could handle it with just that one counterattack move. So coming into the US-Canada-Mexico tournament, they looked flawless.

But why did they struggle so much against the Spanish bullfighters?

The prerequisite for a counterattack is that someone must be able to deliver the ball to the feet of those forwards, and the midfield also needs to have interceptors. At their peak, their midfield had Griezmann and Kanté—two big names who could both attack and defend. That made all the difference.

Most fans' understanding of the World Cup focuses on "whoever scores is awesome," but that's not the case.

Mbappé is indeed amazing, but without a midfield to feed him the ball, he's just as stuck in "prison."

Deschamps' France team is very accustomed to launching long balls to Mbappé and Dembélé, relying on 20-30 meter sprints to tear open gaps behind the defense. Their threat is built on large open spaces in the backfield.

But once the midfield can't hold the ball and there's no depth for counterattacks, they're finished.

France relies on counterattack space; Spain uses possession plus high pressing to directly erase that space. Their approach to attacking set defenses is indeed limited, and when they finally try to "bomb" it, they don't have a player like Giroud for that role...

In the end, Mbappé was so frustrated that he lost his cool and broke down.

One last point—let me share Bro Di's strongest impression.

Spain's Rodri-Cucurella line was just too overpowered; they could do so many things.

Cucurella could play as a midfielder, track back to defend—he left the deepest impression on me in this match (maybe helped by his hairstyle).

Rodri could cover the flanks and control the tempo; the two of them bridged the connection between the wings and the center.

Olise, who had previously shone for France, was supposed to be the core of the team's midfield transition, responsible for delivering through balls and linking up Mbappé and Dembélé's counterattacks.

But... this semifinal was quite embarrassing for him.

Looking at it this way, Portugal, which Bro Di had favored before the World Cup, only died at the very last moment—so that's actually not bad...