France and Spain have squared off 11 times since 2006, and the record is lopsided in a way that might surprise casual fans watching Tuesday’s semifinal: Spain have won seven of those meetings to France’s three, with one draw. Zoom out to the full history and the picture evens out considerably. Here’s the complete record, every result since 2006, and what it all tells us about Dallas.
| All-Time (since 1922) | Since 2006 | |
|---|---|---|
| Meetings played | 38 | 11 |
| Spain wins | 18 | 7 |
| France wins | 13 | 3 |
| Draws | 7 | 1 |
| Biggest Spain win | 8-1 (1929, friendly) | 5-4 (2025, Nations League) |
| Biggest France win | 3-1 (2006, World Cup) | 3-1 (2006, World Cup) |
| World Cup meetings | 1 | 1 |
| Top scorer, this fixture | — | Lamine Yamal, 3 goals in 2 games |
Worth noting: for the first 61 years of this fixture (1922-1983), every meeting was a friendly. Spain won seven of the first eight, including that 8-1 mauling in 1929 — France didn’t beat Spain at all until four years later. The rivalry didn’t have a genuine competitive edge until the 1984 European Championship final in Paris, which France won en route to their first major title. So while Spain lead the all-time count comfortably, a big chunk of that gap was built before either side treated this as a rivalry worth fearing.
| Date | Result | Competition |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 27, 2006 | Spain 1-3 France | World Cup Round of 16 |
| Feb 6, 2008 | Spain 1-0 France | Friendly |
| Mar 3, 2010 | France 0-2 Spain | Friendly |
| Jun 23, 2012 | Spain 2-0 France | Euro Quarterfinal |
| Oct 16, 2012 | Spain 1-1 France | World Cup Qualifier |
| Mar 26, 2013 | France 0-1 Spain | World Cup Qualifier |
| Sep 4, 2014 | France 1-0 Spain | Friendly |
| Mar 28, 2017 | France 0-2 Spain | Friendly |
| Oct 10, 2021 | Spain 1-2 France | Nations League Final |
| Jul 9, 2024 | France 1-2 Spain | Euro Semifinal |
| Jun 5, 2025 | Spain 5-4 France | Nations League Semifinal |
Competitive vs. friendly split: of the 11 meetings since 2006, seven have come in competitive fixtures (World Cup, Euros, qualifiers, Nations League) and four in friendlies. Spain hold the edge in both buckets, but it’s the competitive record that matters more for Tuesday — and even there, France’s two most recent competitive-fixture defeats (2024, 2025) came by a single goal and two goals respectively, not routs
June 27, 2006 — Spain 1-3 France (World Cup Round of 16)
This is the one every France fan of a certain age remembers. Franck Ribéry, Patrick Vieira, and Zinedine Zidane all scored as France eliminated Spain 3-1 in the last 16 at that year’s World Cup, with Zidane inspiring an aging Les Bleus side that would go on to reach the final. It remains France’s only World Cup meeting with Spain before Tuesday — meaning this semifinal is genuinely uncharted territory for a rivalry that’s usually played out in friendlies, qualifiers, and Euros.
February 6, 2008 — Spain 1-0 France (Friendly)March 3, 2010 — France 0-2 Spain (Friendly)June 23, 2012 — Spain 2-0 France (Euro 2012 Quarterfinal)October 16, 2012 — Spain 1-1 France (World Cup Qualifier)March 26, 2013 — France 0-1 Spain (World Cup Qualifier)
This stretch lines up almost exactly with peak tiki-taka Spain — the era of two European Championships and a World Cup between 2008 and 2012. Spain’s 2-0 win in the Euro 2012 quarterfinal, courtesy of a Xabi Alonso brace, ended France’s run at that tournament and was part of a run in which Spain went undefeated against France in competitive fixtures until that very match. Four Spain wins and a draw across five meetings — this is the low point of the rivalry for France, and the period that still shapes the “Spain’s the bigger team” framing many neutral fans carry into Tuesday.
September 4, 2014 — France 1-0 Spain (Friendly)March 28, 2017 — France 0-2 Spain (Friendly
France’s 2014 friendly win came as Didier Deschamps was building the squad that would reach the 2016 Euro final and win the 2018 World Cup — a signal the balance of power was shifting even if Spain’s 2017 friendly win split the two results in this stretch evenly.
October 10, 2021 — Spain 1-2 France (UEFA Nations League Final)
This is the match that reignited the rivalry properly. France came from behind to beat Luis Enrique’s Spain 2-1 in Milan, with Kylian Mbappé scoring the winner in the 80th minute after Karim Benzema had leveled things earlier. It was an agonizing loss for a young Spain side and, per multiple Spanish outlets, a result that stung enough to feed the modern intensity of this fixture heading into the 2020s.
July 9, 2024 — France 1-2 Spain (Euro 2024 Semifinal) June 5, 2025 — Spain 5-4 France (UEFA Nations League Semifinal)
The two most recent meetings both went Spain’s way, and both featured Lamine Yamal in a starring role. At Euro 2024, Yamal and Dani Olmo overturned an early Randal Kolo Muani opener to send Spain through 2-1 on their way to a fourth European Championship title. Then in June 2025, the two sides produced a genuine classic — Spain raced out to a 5-1 lead, with Yamal scoring in the 67th minute, before France mounted a furious late comeback that fell just short in a 5-4 thriller. Yamal is the joint-top scorer in this fixture’s history with three goals across those two meetings alone.
A few patterns jump out once you lay all 11 matches side by side.
Spain own the recent knockout history, and Yamal is the reason why. Spain have won three of the last four meetings, and Yamal has been directly involved in deciding two of them. If there’s a single name that should worry France fans beyond the head-to-head record itself, it’s his — regardless of his quieter form so far at this World Cup.
This fixture rarely stays low-scoring. Outside of the 2012-13 stretch, these games tend to produce goals — 3-1, 2-1, 5-4, and the 2021 Nations League final’s 2-1 all came via genuine back-and-forth play rather than one team suffocating the other. That cuts against the “cagey, low-event semifinal” prediction some previews are making for Tuesday.
France have never lost to Spain at a World Cup — but they’ve also never played them at one since 2006. That 3-1 win two decades ago is genuinely the only World Cup data point in this rivalry. Everything else — the Euros, the Nations League, the friendlies — happened outside the tournament that matters most, which makes Tuesday a legitimately new chapter rather than a rematch of anything recent at this specific stage.
The rivalry has genuine heat behind it now. What started as fairly one-sided in Spain’s golden era has become a fixture both nations’ federations and fanbases treat as a measuring-stick match, thanks largely to the 2021 final and the two 2024-25 classics. Tuesday isn’t just another semifinal — it’s the latest, and highest-stakes, chapter of a rivalry that’s produced some of both nations’ most memorable matches of the last five years.
Put the numbers together — Spain’s edge in four of the last five meetings, Yamal’s direct hand in the last two, but also this fixture’s tendency to swing on individual moments rather than sustained dominance, plus France’s only World Cup meeting with Spain going their way — and the historical record points to a tight, goal-involved match rather than a one-sided defensive struggle.
If the pattern of the last three meetings holds, expect this one to be close, decided by a moment of quality rather than a 90 minutes of control, and not out of the question that it goes to extra time given how many of these recent clashes have been separated by a single goal or less at full time.
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