How Spain shut down the World Cup's most dangerous attacks

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Spanish star Unai Simon is 1-7 to win the Golden Glove award for the best goalkeeper at the World Cup but his teammates have been key to his success.

Simon was questioned by those, particularly in England, heading into this tournament as to whether he should keep his place ahead of Premier League winner David Raya, but inside the squad he was always Luis de la Fuente's undisputed number one.

De la Fuente has an abundance of talent in the goalkeeping department with Barcelona's Joan Garcia also in the squad, but whoever had been selected would not have had much to do this summer.

Spain have controlled matches and as a consequence kept opposition teams away from their goal, allowing an average of 10.1 touches inside their penalty box.

Rodri, who went into the final weekend of the World Cup having completed the most passes (655), was criticised for his opening performance against Cape Verde but has since justified De la Fuente's faith in sticking with the Manchester City midfielder.

De la Fuente has changed one area of his midfield - dropping playmaker Pedri in favour of the more robust Fabian Ruiz - and they have excelled, offering superb protection to a back four that has rarely been troubled in North America.

Charles De Ketelaere, in Belgium's 2-1 quarter-final loss to Spain, is the only player to have scored against them, and opposition teams are struggling to get close to Simon's goal with Kylian Mbappe the latest striker to have been frozen out during La Roja's outstanding 2-0 success over France on Tuesday.

Spain's six clean sheets in seven matches are not a case of a team riding their luck.

They are conceding an expected goals tally of just 0.3 goals per game according to FotMob's statistics and this is not only padded out against weak group opponents.

It could be argued that Spain's run to the final has been particularly difficult, facing four European teams in the knockout stages, and in Portugal and France they met two sides who were single-figure odds in the ante-post outright betting.

Portugal created more opportunities than anyone else, but their xG was still just 0.63, while France were the only team to manage more than two shots on target.

France's three shots on target, though, need to be put into context. Two of those efforts came in injury-time when the tie was pretty much over with Spain leading 2-0.

Mbappe needed 67 minutes to register an attempt at goal, while in the first half France managed just two shots with a total xG of 0.04 as Rodri controlled the midfield to dominate playmaker Michael Olise, and full-backs Pedro Porro and Marc Cucurella locked down wingers Bradley Barcola and Ousmane Dembele.

It was a remarkable effort from Spain considering France went into the semi-finals with the most feared attack in the competition and a tournament xG in excess of 14.

For Simon, it has been simple. Can Lionel Messi and co change that in the final?

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