World Cup: Day Six
Messi, Mbappé, Haaland... and some other guys played football
Ok, I’ll try not to make any horrifying typos where I get the names of countries mixed up this time! Let’s go!
The first half of this newsletter will be free, and then the second half will be for paid subscribers only. These newsletters are going to run every single matchday. If you want to come along for the ride, I have a special offer running right now, giving you 20% off for a year. That’s £4.80/$6.40/€5.60 a month, or you can save in the long run by getting a whole year for £48/$64/€56.
France 3-1 Senegal
Another edition of “how do you stretch teams?”, this time en français.
Four years ago, France had a very clear attacking structure that got the best out of all their key players. Olivier Giroud was born for international football. His ability to hold up the ball with his back to goal allowed France to be much more direct. This in turn forced defences higher up the pitch, creating room for Kylian Mbappé to attack cutting inside from the left. Giroud and Mbappé were the perfect dynamic for this level. They were the rich man’s version of New Zealand’s Chris Wood/Elijah Just combination. Mbappé could cut inside without making the left flank too narrow because full back Théo Hernandez was there on the overlap. On the right flank, Ousmane Dembélé was brilliant as a classic winger staying wide and dribbling past people. Number ten Antoine Griezmann would provide more creativity and passing range to help everything flow wonderfully.
But this is a different group. Giroud and Griezmann aren’t there anymore. Mbappé and Dembélé are both generally playing as strikers at club level. Michael Olise has forced his way into the team through his exceptional form with Bayern. Mbappé, Dembélé and Olise were always going to be the “stars” to build this team around. Didier Deschamps, in his infinite wisdom, decided the way to do it was to play Dembélé as a sort of number ten behind Mbappé as the striker, with Olise on the left.
This was very bad for a lot of reasons. Olise naturally wanted to get involved with the play and drifted inside continually. Right back Jules Koundé was supposed to push up and fill the wide space Olise vacates, but he’s not enough of an attacking threat to make this work. Dembélé and Mbappé didn’t seem to understand how to play these roles. It just wasn’t good. It didn’t work. A French side led by Giroud had a natural structure. This group of players need more of an enforced structure to shine.
Fortunately for Deschamps, he found a pretty simple fix: move Olise into a central role and put Dembélé on the right. This made perfect sense because international football is dumber than club football. Simplify the roles. Dembélé can take people on and put crosses in. Olise can pick out three runners around him. At club level, you’d want them interchanging in complex movements, but here it’s “keep it simple, stupid”.
It’s still hard to break open teams, but things got much better from there. It took Olise playing an absolutely perfect pass to Mbappé for the first goal after 66 minutes of frustration. You can’t just make space in behind happen and it took extreme precision from two of the best players in the world. If Mbappé misses that chance, I how hard France have to work to win this game. But it was a different match from there. Bradley Barcola scores France’s second in transition, which just wasn’t happening unless Senegal needed a goal. The third is about Mbappé having the time and space to shoot from range which, again, doesn’t happen against a low block.
The first goal is the one you have to figure out how to score. After that, your quality players will have space to do their thing.
Iraq 1-4 Norway
Next up on Superstar Roulette, it’s Erling Haaland!
If these last few newsletters have a single theme, it’s that a quality physical centre forward is a good thing to have at international level. That makes Haaland rather useful to Norway. They get the first goal by working the ball wide and putting in a cross for the best out-and-out striker in the world, just as god intended. Iraq equalise with a very similar goal: a cross to Aymen Hussein’s head. Then Norway make it 2-1 when Iraq try to overcomplicate things and pass it out from the back, letting the main man pounce on the goalkeeper.
World Cups are a strange thing. Ok, ok, let’s talk about the one star you’re all hyped about, because you’re all trying to tell yourselves you’re still with it if a 38 year old can play like that.
Argentina 3-0 Algeria
You don’t need to watch this game to know how good he is. You don’t need to watch it to know what he does. But it’s still an utter privilege seeing the man work. Nobody does it better.