Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – European champions Spain are on a World Cup collision course with Kylian Mbappe's France, if they can beat Belgium in the quarter-finals on Friday.
At the spectacular SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the Belgians will face the daunting task of breaking through a Spanish defence that is yet to be breached in the tournament.
If Spain win, they will head to Texas next Tuesday for a semi-final against the French that many observers are already describing as "the final before the final".
First though, Spain need to find goals against a Belgium team who started the World Cup slowly but caught fire as the tournament has gone on.
The 4-1 defeat of the USA in the last round showed just how far the team coached by Rudi Garcia have come in the space of a few weeks.
Spain meanwhile have not displayed the attacking flair of France, but they are playing the possession-based football that carried them to the country's only World Cup triumph – in South Africa in 2010.
Lamine Yamal of Barcelona, who turns 19 next week, is Spain's standout attacker but he arrived in the United States after suffering a late-season injury and has seemed a peripheral figure at times, scoring just once in five games.
Yamal, widely tipped to inherit the mantle of the world's greatest player once Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo finally leave the stage, could be due a goal.
"We know that the best version of him, the attacking Lamine, is something that we haven't quite seen yet in this World Cup. Not to the level that we're used to," said Spain coach Luis de la Fuente on Thursday.
In Yamal's absence, Mikel Oyarzabal has scored four times, including twice in the 3-0 defeat of an outclassed Austria in the last 32 at SoFi.
Spain have conceded just six shots on target in their five matches so far.
Last hurrah
Belgium looked leaden and their stars ageing when they opened their group-stage account.
But they showed their mettle in an exciting defeat of Senegal in the last 32, when Youri Tielemans came to the fore to drag his team back from 2-0 down to a 3-2 victory after the introduction of Romelu Lukaku as an impact substitute.
The Belgians then demolished the USA in the last 16, in a game overshadowed by Donald Trump's intervention to get US striker Folarin Balogun's red card from the previous round cancelled.
That move fired up the Belgians, who celebrated Lukaku's goal by mocking Trump with an on-field imitation of the president's infamous Y.M.C.A. dance.
The World Cup is likely the last hurrah for the last of Belgium's so-called Golden Generation – including Lukaku, former Premier League player of the year Kevin De Bruyne and towering goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois of Real Madrid.
Belgium as underdogs
Coach Garcia said on Thursday: "Everyone is already talking about us going home. But we think that we can do it. We think we can pull it off, and we're going to do everything we can to get to the semis."
On Thursday, France underlined their credentials by turning what was expected to be a tight quarter-final with Morocco into a clinical 2-0 win in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
The Moroccans were restricted to a handful of shots as Mbappé first had a penalty saved and then grabbed his eighth goal of this World Cup and 20th overall, before Ousmane Dembele completed the job.
Mbappé was substituted later and applied an ice pack to his foot, but was quick to reassure France fans that it was nothing serious.
