If you ask Lamine Yamal, the Ballon d’Or comes down to this.
The Spanish wunderkind was asked how this afternoon’s Nations League semifinal against France and Ousmane Dembélé would help determine football’s loftiest individual prize, and though Yamal insisted that it should be a season-long award, he said, “If people want to put it all on Thursday, then let’s play.”
While it should be a tightly-contested match, the southern squad has a slight edge at DraftKings Sportsbook. Spain is -145 to advance, with France at +110, but both sides possess star-studded squads — both Dembélé and Kylian Mbappé are likely to be up front for Les Bleus, while La Roja will start Barcelona teammates Yamal and Pedri.
France vs. Spain prediction, pick
On paper, France’s match-day squad is probably more talented, given that Dembélé just won both Ligue 1 Player of the Season and Champions League Player of the Season in leading Paris Saint-Germain to their first-ever Champions League title, and Mbappé won the European Golden Shoe by scoring 31 goals, becoming the first player ever to win the award in his debut season in La Liga. Neither side has quite a full-strength squad, though, as Les Bleus’ star defender William Saliba will miss the match, as will 2024 Ballon d’Or winner Rodri for Spain. The French squad has a market value two million Euros higher than the Spaniards do.
The last time this La Roja squad suited up, they put on a show in a 5-4 victory in a penalty shoot-out after tying, 5-5, with the Netherlands on aggregate. Spain demonstrated its quality in the attack during that two-legged tie, amassing 34 shots to the Netherlands’ 26 and forcing Bart Verbruggen to make a combined 11 saves just to send the tie to penalties, where Pedri tucked home the winner. In that match, La Roja had Mikel Oyarzabal up front in place of Álvaro Morata, who will likely get the nod today.
France, meanwhile, needed to make a two-goal comeback to just to make it to the semifinals, as it fell behind 2-0 after the first leg against Croatia, allowing Dominik Livaković to make six saves. But Les Bleus were dominant in the second leg, and while Livaković made six saves once again, 28 shots to the Croats’ five was enough to make all the difference, as Michael Olise and Dembélé — both of whom will likely be in the front three this afternoon — both found the back of the net, and Dayot Upamecano eventually netted the 5-4 winner in the penalty shootout. Upamecano, a Bayern Münich center back who ranks in the 88th percentile in interceptions, will also be unable to suit up today as he recovers from a knee injury that he suffered in that quarterfinal.
The X factor for France is that Desiré Doué, a 20-year-old winger who just won Player of the Match in the Champions League final by recording three goal contributions, will likely play a bigger role than usual this afternoon. Doué has appeared just once for the national team, playing the final 55 minutes of the quarterfinal second leg and recording two shots on target, but Didier Deschamps can’t keep him out of the lineup given his form. He clearly lives for big moments, having combined for five goal contributions across the Coupe de France and Champions League title matches, so I expect that he’ll step up here. But it’s possible that Doué and Dembélé, having achieved the biggest prize in club football, won’t put as much emphasis on the match after expending their emotional energy in the UCL final and its aftermath, especially with the Club World Cup coming up.
Yamal raised the stakes for himself by acknowledging the Ballon d’Or chatter, but he has literally grown up in the spotlight, debuting for Barcelona as a 15-year-old. He was arguably the best and most dynamic player on the pitch in both legs of the Blaugrana’s ultimately losing effort in the Champions League semifinals, and he’s already netted 12 goal contributions in 19 appearances for his country, tying for the most assists at any single Euro tournament ever last summer. The last time Yamal played this French side, he scored in the 21st minute of the semifinal, and Spain hasn’t lost a competitive match since March 2023.
