Pedro Porro turns from defender to destroyer as Spain outwit France once more | Sid Lowe

“Let me loose in a prison and I’ll end up owning the place,” Pedro Porro once said. Let him loose in the penalty area and that will belong to him too. The whole world might: to him and the entire gang. When the Spain right-back burst into the box like a jail break, sprinting on to Dani Olmo’s superb layoff, and steadied himself to guide the ball into the net and score the second goal in Dallas, there was still half an hour to go in this semi-final, but it was done. They knew it was. Somehow, it was like they always had.

Porro kissed the badge and raced to the corner, his teammates streaming across the pitch and off the bench towards him. He was there to protect them from Kylian Mbappé, one of those in that terrifying French forward line, projected as if they were the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the toughest, most fearful men in the joint. Or so it goes. Yet when it came to decisive blow, it was he, not they, who delivered it. Instinct had taken over, if only for an instant. And what an instant it was, guaranteeing that it was Spain going to the World Cup final.

This was Porro’s second goal at the World Cup; he has scored more than he has allowed. There was a moment before the semi-final when he was asked where the balance lay between going at opponents and forcing them back and holding firm, not allowing them past you. “It depends on who you’re playing: against Belgium I was basically with [Jérémy] Doku all game. I only really went forward once,” he said. “And that was the goal.” Well played, sir. Well played all of you. Here, he went only once too, but it will be for ever. “Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this,” he said.

Spain, though, could. There was a reason for that a sense of certainty when he scored the second. Not only because the lead was two goals now but because the game was theirs. Because if he was there to defend, he had done that too. Because they all had; not so much through heroism but through domination, control, mastery of the game. France had not been able to hurt them and would not be able to hurt them, they knew. Not if they played their way.

Which they did. When Unai Simón saved from Ousmane Dembélé on 94 minutes it was only the second time France had had a shot on target. Spain have conceded once all tournament. They were superb, a collective with no flaws. That was seen in how they took the lead and how they now held it, playing out the rest of the game, this historic occasion, with the kind of calm that hadn’t been seen since … well, since Mikel Oyarzabal scored the penalty that started it.

Of all the people in all the world that could have stood over the penalty that put them 1-0 up, there was no one they would have rather had. “Few things in football make me nervous,” the striker said recently, and penalties are not one of them; the biggest games aren’t either. He has scored in every final he has played in, including the winner against England at the Euros two years ago. From the spot, he took Real Sociedad to their first Copa del Rey title in 34 years and another one five years on. He had taken 53 and missed six, scoring 89.65%, and he wasn’t about to miss.

Pedro Porro keeps pace with France captain Kylian Mbappé who was kept quiet in the semi-final. Photograph: Albert Pena/EPA

He took it with the same conviction and calm with which the selección played all afternoon.

Exhausted, Porro made way late on. From the bench he watched Spain see it out to a soundtrack of olés and with a sense of complete superiority. In the stands sat Xavi Hernández, Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol and Sergio Ramos. When they won the World Cup in 2010, Porro had celebrated in Don Benito, Extremadura, a kid whose parents struggled to make ends meet, working all hours, and whose grandad Antonio took him everywhere. Now, he and his generation are one step from emulating them.

“This isn’t mine, it is all 26 of us” Porro said. This belonged to him and Marc Cucurella, Aymeric Laporte and Pau Cubarsi, their other absurdly talented 19-year-old. To Rodri, who was on another plane to every player out there. To all the men who have been on the road for a month and have one more stop left, the “family”, as the coach keeps calling them, who made France look so ordinary. Spain were Spain, as Luis de la Fuente had asked them to be. “Tranquility is power,” he likes to say, but once in a while you have to let loose.