Having sat with Spain's 2-0 victory over France in the World Cup semifinal for several hours now, I am left with an overwhelming sense of relief. Not because Spain won or France lost, but because the game's second goal was as beautiful as it was.
Whether or not you watched the game, you need to do yourself a favor and watch this goal several more times before the day is done.
I count 17 passes there, to go along with a blocked shot and a recycled cross. There are many ways to score a goal in soccer, but only a few truly sublime ones. One of those ways is to start with the ball deep in your own end, slowly move it up the field with a series of quick and accurate passes, and then end the spell of possession with a fullback streaking into the box, completely unmarked, to score a goal. Have you ever seen Pep Guardiola work himself into a lather, speaking in tongues to his players while shadowboxing in the locker room? When he does that, a goal like this one is what he's visualizing in his head.
So why the feeling of relief? That has to do with the fact that games eventually get retold as a series of moments, and no moments are bigger than goals. Without that second goal, the decisive incident in this game would have been the penalty that Lucas Digne gave away early in the first half thanks to Lamine Yamal perfectly timing a foul-seeking leap into Digne's leg. It was a cheap penalty, though a legit one, and it threatened to tell the wrong story about this game.
A 1-0 victory with a goal from a penalty is the exact sort of result the Spanish national team has long been designed to produce. You know the deal by now: They keep possession for as long as possible, grind out just enough goal-scoring opportunities to put one in the net, and then bleed the game dry. Those who are impressed by this strategy will throw around terms like "tiki-taka" and "defensive possession." Those who aren't might instead reach for "Spanish bullshit." We have seen plenty of Spanish bullshit in this tournament, which is how Spain entered the semifinal having conceded a single goal across six matches.
France seemed poised to put an end to all that. No team had been more lethal in this tournament, and none of Spain's previous opponents had nearly as much attacking power. A common experience for me over the last month has been glancing at France's starting XI an hour before each of their games and turning into Tony Soprano. Bradley Barcola, Michael Olise, Ousmane Dembélé, and Kylian Mbappé all on the same forward line? This is too fucked for me to even think about.
As it turns out, all it takes is the presence of a historically great opponent for Spanish bullshit to become Spanish brilliance. A philosophy that is enervating to watch when it's deployed against Portugal or, god forbid, Russia, becomes thrilling when it meets a worthy adversary. It's often said that the point of tiki-taka is to nullify the opponent, to make them disappear from the field entirely by denying them possession of the ball. It's a magic trick that's impressiveness scales up with the quality of the opponent, and on Tuesday the Spanish had the whole world watching in disbelief.
France was just never in the game. They ran and pressed with the same ferocity that overwhelmed each of their previous opponents, but Spain just kept passing and dribbling right through them. When France did eventually get hold of the ball, Spain's magicians would turn rugged and take it right off them. This is what makes Pedro Porro's goal such an ideal capper to Spain's performance. It was technically the result of a fluid, 17-pass sequence, but it was spiritually the result of a 427-pass sequence that lasted 97 minutes. When the story of this game gets told and retold, let it be said that there was only one team on the field.
