Spain books World Cup semifinal with France after late goal downs Belgium

Mikel Oyarzabal did what Mikel Oyarzabal does. With the clock ticking toward stoppage time at the 2026 World Cup quarterfinal on Friday, 10 July 2026, the Spain striker produced the kind of late, near-post finish that has become his signature at international level, beating Belgium 2-1 and sending La Roja into a semifinal with France. ESPN's late-night wire report on 10 July 2026 at 22:11 UTC described the outcome as feeling "inevitable for most of the game," a verdict consistent with a Spain side that controlled territory and possession for long stretches without ever fully putting the result away.

Belgium, the team that rarely wants for talent and routinely disappoints at tournament football, again exits a World Cup at the last-eight stage, and again will do so with the familiar question hanging over the generation around Kevin De Bruyne. Spain, by contrast, advances to face a French side that has looked increasingly hard to score against in this tournament. The bracket now sets up a heavyweight European semifinal, the kind of fixture that fits La Roja's tournament identity better than any slow-burn quarterfinal ever could.

Spain's pattern: dominate, then pounce

The CBS Sports preview published at 13:50 UTC on 10 July framed the matchup as a Spain-favored quarterfinal, with the betting markets treating La Roja as the side to beat and Belgium as a tournament-long live dog priced for upset potential. That pricing reflected what has been true throughout this World Cup: Spain play a possession game built on positional rotations in midfield, with a frontline that includes teenage winger Lamine Yamal and a striker corps capable of punishing the smallest defensive lapse. Belgium's defensive shape held for most of the night, but holding is not the same as containing, and Spain's pressure told eventually in the form of a winner.

The broadcast live blog carried by ESPN at 19:44 UTC tracked the match minute by minute. Belgium's equalizer had given the underdogs a window, and Spain's inability to convert earlier chances had begun to look like the kind of wastefulness that punishes favorites in knockout football. Then Oyarzabal, a forward whose late-goal résumé for Spain includes the Euro 2024 final, found a pocket of space inside the box and finished. The match-winning goal, by ESPN's description on 10 July, came from "a familiar face."

What the markets said, what the pitch said

Polymarket's breaking-news update at 21:02 UTC on 10 July was the cleanest single-sentence confirmation of the result: "Spain defeats Belgium to advance to the World Cup semifinals, where they will face France." The prediction market's read converged with the betting lines tracked across CBS Sports's coverage earlier in the day, where Spain had been installed as the favorite across moneylines, spreads, and the bet builder markets that SportsLine's Martin Green analyzed in his 18-7 roll pick piece at 13:52 UTC. The CBS Sports parlay column at 10:00 UTC had grouped Spain-related selections as part of its broader Friday card, another data point in a market that priced this result as the more likely outcome.

Markets and pitch agreed on Friday. They had disagreed most of the past decade on Belgium, where bookmakers and projection models have routinely given the Red Devils a deeper run than their actual tournament results have delivered. Belgium's World Cup exits since 2014 have followed a familiar arc — group-stage qualification, knockout-stage exit against a technically superior side, post-tournament reflection on a golden generation that never fully clicked when it mattered. Friday was a sharper version of that pattern: Belgium matched Spain for spells, then conceded to the team with the more decisive final-third player.

The semifinal that shapes the bracket

The Spain-France matchup is now the highest-profile fixture left on the European side of the draw. France has looked organized and dangerous in this tournament, the kind of side that can absorb pressure and break with speed. Spain's test against Belgium confirmed that La Roja can still grind out wins when their preferred rhythm is interrupted, which is the more useful quality in a semifinal than aesthetic dominance. The winner of this semifinal will go into the final as either the tournament's most possession-heavy side or its most clinical counter-attacking one, and the contrast in styles will reward whichever team executes its identity more cleanly under knockout pressure.

Oyarzabal's winner also keeps alive a quiet tactical storyline inside Spain's squad: the team has the talent to start Yamal and the veteran sharpness to bring Oyarzabal off the bench to change games. That depth matters more in a semifinal than it does in a quarterfinal, and Luis de la Fuente's willingness to use it will be one of the more interesting selection questions of the next 72 hours. France, for its part, will not need reminding that Spain has the players to punish a single lapse in concentration.

What remains uncertain

The sources do not specify the exact goalscorers beyond the match-winning Oyarzabal finish, nor do they detail the timing of either Spain goal or the Belgian equalizer. CBS Sports's preview pieces at 13:50 UTC and the parlay column at 10:00 UTC focused on market analysis rather than tactical breakdown, while ESPN's late wire at 22:11 UTC confirmed the scoreline and the match-winner's identity without publishing a full minute-by-minute statistical summary in the items available. A fuller accounting of expected-goals figures, possession splits, and individual shot maps will have to wait for the next day's advanced-stats wrap. What the Friday wire does confirm is narrower and more durable: Spain won, Belgium is out, and the semifinal opponent is France.

Desk note: Monexus framed Friday's result as a continuation of Belgium's tournament pattern rather than an upset, leaning on the convergence of betting markets, prediction markets, and Spain's in-game control rather than on any single tactical takeaway the wire did not provide.