“We need to enjoy ourselves” – Luis de la Fuente ahead of semi final | OneFootball

The clash of the top two sides in the world, France vs Spain, has become a regular fixture at the back end of tournaments in recent years. Both sides are ranked inside the top four and have unlimited talent at their disposal, but so far this tournament, Spain’s approach has been very different to their European neighbours.

Conceding just once so far, Spain have shown impressive togetherness and solidity throughout the tournament, even though they haven’t blown teams away in the same vein as Les Bleus.

Head coach de la Fuente, who won the European Championships with Spain just two years ago, has shown no fear ahead of their clash with France, even though Spain’s attack is yet to get going as this tournament has progressed.

“I tell the players that we need to enjoy ourselves; we’re in a situation that might never happen again. That we be ourselves, and that we be wary of the opposition’s strengths. We absolutely must believe we want to go through. We’ll give it our all to reach the final.”

They will absolutely have to give their all if they are to stop the imperious French attack that consists of Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembélé, Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise and, of course, Kylian Mbappé. Their depth doesn’t stop there, with the likes of Bradley Barcola, Desiré Doué and Rayan Cherki providing backup too.

When asked about how he plans to prepare for this intimidating attack, de la Fuente had done more than his share of homework.

“We’ve analysed ‌them very, very thoroughly. They have players of exceptional calibre, but so do we. The key is to impose our own characteristics and style, and to neutralise the opposition. That’s football. The more balanced side is usually closer to winning, although that’s no guarantee.”

Despite the strengths of France, especially in this tournament, Spain have the one-up over Deschamps’ men over the last few tournaments. La Roja won the team’s previous meeting 5-4 in a remarkable Nations League semi-final where they led 5-1 until the final 15 minutes, whilst previously defeating them 2-1 in the Euro 2024 semi-final.

”We learn a lot from those matches, as they will have done,” de la Fuente said on the French. “We will try to repeat the scenarios where situations were favourable to us and not the others.”

France head coach Didier Deschamps knows this and, in his own press conference, labelled Spain the favourites ahead of this tie, something that de la Fuente took slight issue with.

”Being told you are favourites or not means nothing,” he said. “We are both great teams, like in the other semi-final (England v Argentina). I don’t understand why people say such things because whether we’re the favourites or not is completely irrelevant.”

Both sides are riddled with superstars; Mbappe and Dembele have 13 goals between them at these finals so far, with fellow forward Michael Olise registering five assists.

Comparing these stats to those of Spain’s main man Lamine Yamal, it doesn’t read well, the recently turned 19-year old has only netted once and not registered an assist so far, but De La Fuente has remained defiant in his defence of his leading attacker.

“I’ve told him [Yamal] there is no need to worry – let him enjoy himself. I’m sure Lamine’s great World Cup day is still to come. I hope it’s tomorrow and, if not, then in the final, if we can get there.”

Spain will know that they face possibly the toughest challenge of the entire tournament on their way to the final, this France team look almost unstoppable and have shown their ability to win a game in plenty of different ways.

De La Fuente has taken his side to glory in the Euros most recently and will be keen to put that second star on La Roja’s shirt.

France vs Spain kicks off at 8:00pm UK time in Dallas.