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The Final & 3rd Place - FRA v. CRO / BEL v. ENG


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That final left a sour aftertaste.  Griezmann’s dive (and Pogba’s offside challenge on Mandzukic) for the opening goal changed the game decisively.  Then the penalty felt unearned.  Croatia were dominant but France got to halftime at 2-1 with extreme good fortune and crap football, and then could pick off the desperate and tiring Croats in the second half.  Pogba and Mbappe took their goals well and put some glamorous gloss on a game where France showed very little quality in their play.  It left me feeling the Croat’s were cheated of a fair shot at this game, even if the outcome might have been the same anyway  

But, it has to be acknowledged that Croatia generated very few good chances from all of their midfield control and interplay between their front three.  The French defense has been miserly and once again was able to sit deep and absorb pressure.  Varane and Umtiti cleared so many crosses, and Lloris caught several too easily.  Perisic was great in the first half but over hit so many crosses in the second.  Rebic was dangerous in flashes but not much end product. 

This French team was efficient.  They sat deep and defended comfortably for most of the tournament (other than a nervy 15-20 minutes late against Argentina), they grew in confidence as the tournament went on and found a shape with their MF 3 sitting deep and their attacking 3 offering an out-ball.  They are champions but I wish they offered better entertainment getting there. 

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I've watched the awards ceremony up until Lloris lifted the trophy. 

The Croatians were gracious losers, much better than the Argentinians 4 years ago. I recall Messi couldn't wait to get off the field that day. Also, the French, while ecstatic, where not all up in their faces. Deschamps was gracious, and congratulated every Croatian player. I think he's secured his job for at least 2 more years. Oh, what will Zidane do? :P

Anyway, I must say I've never seen heads of state more jubilant than this at a sports event. Both Macron and Croatia's Grabar-Kitarović were really into it, despite the rain. Speaking of which, was the rain Russia's warning to France not to overstay their welcome, again. ;) (just being silly here). 

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3 hours ago, Notone said:

 

Again, for the last 20 years almost any reigning champion has struggled rather badly when it came down to defending the title. Brazil in 1998 was pretty much the last champion that managed to play a good tournament. 

 

Well, that's true. And should be noticed that in Brazil's 1998 team, most of the bigger stars were still eager to make their names- Rivaldo, César Sampaio and Roberto Carlos didn't made the 1994 team, Ronaldo was an unused substitute, Leonardo's tournament ended early due to a red card, Cafu was a reserve in 1994 (though he played most of the final) etc.

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42 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

I've watched the awards ceremony up until Lloris lifted the trophy. 

The Croatians were gracious losers, much better than the Argentinians 4 years ago. I recall Messi couldn't wait to get off the field that day. Also, the French, while ecstatic, where not all up in their faces. Deschamps was gracious, and congratulated every Croatian player. I think he's secured his job for at least 2 more years. Oh, what will Zidane do? :P

 

I watched for a while. And I noticed that during the long, long wait for the presentations, one of the French players (Matuidi, I think?) was over amongst the Croations, hugging and consoling them. The downcast look on his face as he left to return to his team-mates would have made you think he was on the losing team. He obviously realised how much they were hurting and genuinely felt for them.

A real class act.

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15 hours ago, Corvinus said:

That was Pussy Riot? haha. American commentators always try to deflect from that stuff, so I had no idea who it was, but I thought they were Russians.

It is the policy of FIFA/UEFA/broadcasters/whoever that situations like this one are given as little screen time as possible in order to no give publicity to people doing that which would hopefully discourage similar stunts in the future.

15 hours ago, Notone said:

I think England might actually win it in four years time. This year it was a bit too early for them.

England have great results in younger categories so there is definitely something to base such optimism on.

Still, I think that England had a lot of luck (let's call it luck ;)) getting into the weaker side of the draw which made the road to semifinal much easier. Really don't see England making it to the semifinals if they needed to take Belgium's route.

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12 hours ago, Bern is Burning said:

Well, that's true. And should be noticed that in Brazil's 1998 team, most of the bigger stars were still eager to make their names- Rivaldo, César Sampaio and Roberto Carlos didn't made the 1994 team, Ronaldo was an unused substitute, Leonardo's tournament ended early due to a red card, Cafu was a reserve in 1994 (though he played most of the final) etc.

Yep, while the nucleus of the French winning team will stay on, which is kinda my  original point with regards to the bright future.

3 hours ago, baxus said:

Still, I think that England had a lot of luck (let's call it luck ;)) getting into the weaker side of the draw which made the road to semifinal much easier. Really don't see England making it to the semifinals if they needed to take Belgium's route.

Yes, they ended on the easier side of the tree (and avoided the winners' curse :) ), however what this team lacked in their game against Croatia was mainly experience. They fell into passivity in the second half, and conceded a goal that was by no means impossible to defend against. With a bit more experience, I think they could've avoided the passivity trap and would've continued to play or at least played out one or two counter attacks.

15 hours ago, Philokles said:

It was more the complacency it exuded - letting someone who had not played all year walk back into the team no questions asked - than his poor performance that made it a bad decision.

While it played a part, I think it's a bit too lazy and simple to reduce it to Neuer's call up, or Özil's (Gündogan's) embarassing photo op with Turkish autocrat president Erdogan, or their hated lodging in Watutinki, all of that may have a played a role. But unless you assume they had a time machine and travelled back in time 9 months or so, it all falls short. As the series of shitty game had been going on for a while longer. It started after they clinched the qualification, after the Spain or Brazil friendly Kroos called out his teammates in public ("it's now obvious, that we are not as good as people think, or even some of us pretend to be.") So I'd argue that rot goes a bit deeper than that.

Griezman said after they won the title, "you are nothing without the collective/group". That's most certainly true, the Germany of 2014 made a promise to each other, everything for the team, no ego, no distraction from their goal (as none of them wanted to end their international careers with the stain of not having won anything on that level [golden generation, not silver (or tin) generation]). I think that difference played a bigger role than picking Neuer. 

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54 minutes ago, Notone said:

Yes, they ended on the easier side of the tree (and avoided the winners' curse :) ), however what this team lacked in their game against Croatia was mainly experience. They fell into passivity in the second half, and conceded a goal that was by no means impossible to defend against. With a bit more experience, I think they could've avoided the passivity trap and would've continued to play or at least played out one or two counter attacks.

Honestly, I think that England getting this far has more to do with them playing in the easier half of the bracket than with their quality.

If England fell into Belgium's place after the group stage, I don't see them moving past Brazil. I'm not even certain they'd move past Japan.

Good news for England is that there's enough potential and enough time for that potential to be fulfilled but at the moment there are a lot of ifs that need to be met before I'd call England a serious title contender in Qatar.

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England need some midfielders to come through. As soon as they came up against a quality midfield they eventually got overrun. They can go with the same formation but with Alli behind Kane instead of Sterling, Rose/Sessegnon on the left to provide genuine width and attacking threat and two CMs with Henderson/Dier. Henderson played well but he cannot run the midfield by himself - Lingard is more of a secondary striker type player than a true CM. Once Croatia's midfield trio gained control of the midfield, it became very difficult for England to have any meaningful possession and they couldn't even effectively play on the counter.

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21 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

England need some midfielders to come through.



I've been discussing this elsewhere, it's actually really worrying how few there are if you're an England fan. Out of all the players that have been winning youth tournaments for England in the last few years, the only central mids who seem to have made any inroads at all in first team football at clubs at the top level are Tom Davies and Lewis Cook. Both of them are good players (Davies in particular is the one I think Southgate should be incorporating into the squad asap building to the Euros) but neither are creative geniuses or anything and past that it's thin pickings.

Will Hughes could yet make a meaningful contribution but he needs to have an injury-free top-flight season before he's considered.

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

I've been discussing this elsewhere, it's actually really worrying how few there are if you're an England fan. Out of all the players that have been winning youth tournaments for England in the last few years, the only central mids who seem to have made any inroads at all in first team football at clubs at the top level are Tom Davies and Lewis Cook. Both of them are good players (Davies in particular is the one I think Southgate should be incorporating into the squad asap building to the Euros) but neither are creative geniuses or anything and past that it's thin pickings.

Will Hughes could yet make a meaningful contribution but he needs to have an injury-free top-flight season before he's considered.

There's Phil Foden, Mason Mount (though getting shunted out on loan to Derby as a favour to Lampard is dispiriting), Angel Gomes, George McEachran coming through. Most of them from the u17 instead of u20 World Cup winners, so haven't made their mark yet.

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Given that Didier Deschamps had the boules massives to drop 14 of the 23 who got him all the way to the Euro 2016 final he seems a pretty nice bet to buck this trend of champions choking in the subsequent tournament supposedly due to staleness.

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Deschamps also has the luxury of having a wealth of talent waiting in the wings if he needs to freshen things up. Plus their main fullbacks - Sidibe and Mendy -  didn't play much (both only featured against Denmark) due to fitness concerns - Sidibe missed the last month or so of the season due to injury and Mendy was out for most of the season.

Dembele, Tolisso and Fekir were used mainly from the bench and then you still have Thauvin (who only came on for a few minutes against Argentina) and Lemar (who only featured against Denmark). Laporte, Martial, Coman, Bakayoko, Rabiot and Lacazette were not even selected and there's highly rated Ndombele waiting in the wings as well. 

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6 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Yes Moussa Dembele for Belgium and Ousmane Dembele for France :)  



It could be worse- there's a Moussa Dembele who's French.
They were very briefly at the same club- Fulham, too, though Belgian Dembele moved on to Spurs very swiftly. They have also been linked with buying the Frenchman repeatedly, but the dream of them playing together has never been realised.

 

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7 hours ago, Triskjavikson said:

Were both the Dembele on France and the Dembele on Belgium both people that it was oft-speculated should have come off the bench and played more?  

Belgian Dembele, definitely. I think French Dembele could have been used more since France were mainly looking to play on the counter and he would have brought more pace to the attack in addition to Mbappe - basically Mbappe on the left, Dembele on the right and Griezmann behind Giroud. But Deschamps preferred the more conservative approach with Matuidi who offers more defensive solidity. 

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8 hours ago, Triskjavikson said:

Holy shit, thanks, haha.

Were both the Dembele on France and the Dembele on Belgium both people that it was oft-speculated should have come off the bench and played more?  

Belgian Dembele started in the semi-final or the quarter-final, I forget which one. He struggled and Martinez subbed him out in the 2nd half.

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Moussa had a very bad day in the semi's. Everyone thought it was great Martinez put him on the field against French... Not so good idea in the end. 

He was much better against England though. 

But then England's midfield is almost non-existing, something that was very visible in the match against Belgium.

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