You say you like lots of scoring? Then you probably weren’t all that keen on what FOX Sports offered up for the better part of yesterday. But if you have any ability to appreciate defensive dominance at all, then you might have come away as I did with one of the more satisfying back-to-back viewing experiences of the summer.
While I still don’t profess to be a soccer pundit I did come to appreciate the world-class efforts of prominent veterans like Harry Kane, Lionel Messi and especially the youngest of this year’s World Cup overachievers had reached the tournament’s semifinal stage, France’s Kylian Mbappe. But as CBS SPORTS’ Chuck Booth observed, the latter more than met his match:
For the first time since winning the World Cup in 2010, Spain are in the final after defeating France 2-0 in Arlington, Texas on Tuesday…Spain’s defense delivered and shut down the tournament’s most fearsome attack. Luis De La Fuente’s squad have only allowed one goal during this tournament, with a record six shutouts in one tournament. The early goal mattered as from there Spain were able to play the game at their preferred pace, but it’s such an impressive job to stop a French attack that has the Golden Boot leader (Mbappe), assist leader (Michael Olise), and another player with five goals (Ousmane Dembele).
While it has been an excellent World Cup for France, they exited with more of a whimper as Spain’s teenagers, Pau Cubarsi and Yamal, got the better of the game as France were held to only 0.30 expected goals. Rodri continues his run of dominance for club and country with his own role in Spain’s dominant defense, anchoring the base of midfield, but facing France, it was keeper Unai Simon whose aggression paid off. Simon had multiple times when he came off his line to stop French counterattacks from happening, and while that’s easier to do with a defense of Aymeric Laporte, Cubarsi and Rodri supporting you, it’s still impressive how Spain didn’t allow one of the top-scoring teams to get into their attacking flow.
THE ATHLETIC FC’s Phil Hay was privy to how much Les Blues knew they had been outclassed:
France attacking midfielder Rayan Cherki reflected on yesterday’s 2-0 loss in Dallas by claiming: “The only team who were capable of eliminating us was ourselves.” That’s not strictly true. Spain, when it comes to it, are not far off invincible under De la Fuente. I’ve used this stat before but to reiterate: in almost 50 matches as head coach, he’s suffered one competitive defeat. One. They have superstar quality in Lamine Yamal but it’s not what they’re about. Energy, organisation, comfort in possession and elite mentality combine to make them the complete package. In the end, France were reduced to looking like a collection of outstanding individuals, all having a bad day concurrently.
And last night when the best of the best–or at least those not pretending to be injured or disinterested, convened in Philadelphia for major league baseball’s 96th All-Star Game, another unexpectedly one-sided result occurred, as ESPN’s site noted:
With all the talk about how strong the National League has been in the first half of the season, many thought the NL would run away with the Midsummer Classic. The exact opposite happened, with AL scoring three first-inning runs off Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Cristopher Sanchez thanks to the New York Yankees‘ Cody Bellinger, the MVP of the game, and Ben Rice. The AL continued to dominate from there, taking a no-hit bid into the fourth inning before Juan Soto singled for the NL, one of just three hits on the night for the Senior Circuit.
One contributor willing to take a byline, David Schoenfeld, underscored this point:
Did the AL deliver the most dominant pitching performance in All-Star history? The pitchers struck out 15 batters, one short of the nine-inning record of 16. They allowed three hits, tied for the second lowest total ever. Ten of the 11 AL pitchers used struck out at least one batter. Did it make for an exciting game? OK, no … but it shows the state of baseball in 2026: When the pitchers are on, even the best hitters in the world can’t touch them.
And his colleague Jorge Castillo added exactly how serendipitous is was for Bellinger–one of the few members of my struggling fantasy team to actually be earning his keep–to get acknowledged as this game’s star:
Injuries and underperformance led to the Dodgers designating him for assignment after the 2022 season. He enjoyed a resurgence with the Chicago Cubs in 2023 and was an invaluable contributor for the New York Yankees last season. But Tuesday was his first All-Star Game appearance in seven years. Newly 31 years old with two young children, the All-Star nod was already especially meaningful before he delivered a two-run single in the first inning that eventually earned him MVP honors. It was a long road back, but Bellinger returned to the Midsummer Classic — and capitalized.
Personally, I’m not sure that even Bellinger’s heartwarming story was worthy of this aware–frankly, his struggles in the actual games played this month has cost my fantasy team two consecutive weeks of critical victories, and an outlying two-run single even off someone with Sanchez’s stuff is to me not all that big a deal. But baseball being what baseball is, rather than be imaginative and split the award amongst the AL staff they decided to reward the closest thing to a productive hitter the game was able to produce.
They clearly didn’t learn from Los Rojos that defense wins. And to me, that was the most offensive action of the night.
Courage…