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 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 mouth-watering semi-final against the French that many observers are already describing as the final before the final.
First, though, Spain needs to find goals against a Belgium team that started the World Cup slowly but caught fire as the tournament has gone on.
The 4-1 demolition of the USA in the last round showed just how far the team coached by Rudi Garcia has 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.
