Real Madrid Players in the World Cup Semi Finals: Tuesday Action

On Tuesday at 21:00 CET, we had the first semi final of this summer's FIFA World Cup, in its 101st game. With it, we had action for Real Madrid players - with Ibrahima Konate, Aurelien Tchouameni, Kylian Mbappe and France taking on Marc Cucurella's Spain. 

As usual, Konate was named amongst the subs, whilst Tchouameni made his return from injury that had seen him miss their last two games, and was slotted back into the XI by manager Didier Deschamps, whilst Mbappe lead the line as skipper. For the seventh straight game, Cucurella started for Spain. 

Twenty minutes or so into the game, Spain won a penalty after a rash foul inside the area, which they ruthlessly converted into the back of the net. A little under ten minutes later, William Saliba was forced off with injury, but it was not Konate who replaced him, with Maxence Lacroix of Crystal Palace preferred instead. 

A little under a quarter of an hour into the second half, Spain made it 2-0 after a slick passing move. From there, France had absolutely no answers, and it was a very comfortable win for the European Champions. If anybody was going to score the third goal of the game, despite the game state, it was going to be them, no doubt about that. 

All three Real Madrid players who started the game played the 90 minutes. Suffice to say, Cucurella was the best performing player of all of them. Despite picking up a booking in the first half, he put in a very disciplined performance, winning 3/4 tackles and winning 4/7 ground duels, being dribbled past 0 times by Ousmane Dembele. 

It was definitely not Mbappe's night, but he still has eight goals in seven games, and is one of two players in World Cup history to have scored 20 goals at the tournament. He can still be very proud of his achievements. It was not a great night for Tchouameni either on his return to the side following an injury. 

France will play the loser of Argentina - England in the third place play off on Saturday in Miami at 23:00 CET. Perhaps there will be some rotation for that one and we will see Konate get a start, but let's see. As for Cucurella and Spain, they will play the winner of Argentina - England in the final on Sunday at 21:00.