Euro 2024, day 16
Euro 2024, day 16
The favoured teams get through, eventually
Alright, not a lot of goals in this one but a fair bit of intrigue. No point wasting time on another intro I hate writing.
France 1-0 Belgium
You ever feel like both managers are ruining everyone’s fun?
Didier Deschamps stuck with the 4-3-3 system he’s been playing recently, but with a crucial change: Antoine Griezmann in for Ousmane Dembélé. These are obviously two very different types of player, but I suspect Deschamps was thinking less about tactics and more about the fact that Dembélé just hasn’t played well recently. He kept the same structure to the side, with that midfield three of Aurélien Tchouaméni, N’Golo Kanté and Adrien Rabiot.
Domenico Tedesco also had decisions to make. Belgium played a kind of 4-4-2 that became a 3-4-3 in possession. The big call was moving Kevin De Bruyne into a deeper double pivot role next to Amadou Onana. It was not great. Attentive readers are currently saying “But Grace! You said to play De Bruyne deeper a few days ago and they did it!” And it’s true, I did say that. But come on, Domenico, this deep? My idea was to make the 4-2-3-1 more of a 4-3-3. Tedesco had him receiving the ball from the centre backs. Look at the passmap from Between the Posts to understand how not to progress the ball. They just couldn’t get it to any of their dangerous players.
France, therefore, controlled the territory pretty well. But they didn’t exactly do a lot with that control. I don’t understand the benefits of this 4-3-3 system Deschamps is playing. Playing Tchouaméni, Kanté and Rabiot together is aesthetically awful, yes, but it was totally unnecessary against a flimsy Belgian double pivot. Jérémy Doku was a bigger problem out wide. I would’ve moved Rabiot over to the right flank to help double up on Doku, then had Griezmann get involved in the middle. As it was, France struggled to create through the midfield, and Griezmann looked uncomfortable on the right. Once again, it all had to happen through Kylian Mbappé and the left flank.
France took mediocre chance after mediocre chance throughout this game, and one of them finally went in! Randal Kolo Muani struck a pretty speculative shot from wide that took a huge deflection of Jan Vertonghen (who you probably assumed had retired a few years ago) to go in. So it goes. France were certainly the better side here, but that doesn’t mean they were particularly good.
Next up they will be facing another side that did not look particularly good today. I can already sense what the narrative is going to be for that one, so let’s talk about the other game.
Portugal 0-0 Slovenia (Portugal go through on penalties)
Ok, ok, we’ll get to him, hold on.