The scheduling quirk is hard to ignore: France takes on Spain in the World Cup semifinal this Tuesday, July 14, which happens to be Bastille Day, France’s national holiday. Kickoff is 2pm local time, 9pm in Paris and Madrid, at Dallas Stadium, the tournament-only name for AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, renamed for the World Cup under FIFA’s rules against unofficial sponsor branding.
Fox has the English broadcast, Telemundo carries it in Spanish, and it’s streaming on Peacock. Whoever wins meets the survivor of the England-Argentina semifinal, played the following day, in the July 19 final.
In Dallas, the rivalry is playing out on plates too. On the Spanish side, Si Tapas in Uptown has built its World Cup run on match-night crowds: Iberian ham, shared tapas, and sangria by the pitcher for every Roja game. On the French side, the Alliance Française de Dallas has been co-hosting screenings, and The French Room Bar rolled out an “Allez les Bleus” menu pairing traditional dishes with tricolor cocktails.
The matchup is a fair stand-in for two different ideas about eating well. Spain’s food culture runs on sharing, tapas, ham, paella, built for an afternoon that stretches on. France leans toward the structured meal, somewhere between bistro cooking and pastry tradition. Neither one needed a soccer ball to make its case, but both are showing up on Dallas bar screens Tuesday night regardless.
Whether France gets to celebrate its own national holiday with a win, or Spain spoils the evening, is still an open question. Either way, in Dallas, the tapas and the French wine didn’t wait for the final score to get served.