Commentary
French freak-out all about nothing
- by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Aug 31, 2017
A shock loss to Sweden in June had dropped the Bleus into second place in Group A, and a slip-up against the Netherlands at home on Thursday would have dropped them into third place.
In Concacaf, third place is worth a ticket to Russia; fourth place is good enough for a playoff spot. European qualifying is so strict that even second place doesn't guarantee a playoff spot.
The French freak-out extended to the Bleus' attack. Despite the deepest frontline in the world -- Ousmane Dembele, sold to Barcelona for a fee that could reach $175 million, wasn't included in the squad for the two September qualifiers -- there were concerns that it would not be up to the task.
On Tuesday, L'Equipe reported that head coach Didier Deschamps had every reason to be worried about who to pick for Thursday's game against the Dutch at the Stade de France.
Star Antoine Griezmann had been red carded playing for Atletico Madrid and played just 67 minutes in official competition this season. Kylian Mbappe had not played since Aug. 4 as Monaco sorted out his transfer to Paris St. Germain. And Olivier Giroud, France's most reliable striker, had been dropped from the Arsenal starting lineup.
They made those concerns look just a little silly as
it rolled to a 4-0 win, handing the hapless Dutch their worst defeat ever in an official competition.
Griezmann and Giroud played a one-two, allowing Griezmann to break clear and
score through the legs of Jasper Cillessen in the 14th minute. Any chances the Dutch had of getting back in the game ended when Kevin Strootman was shown a second yellow card in
the 61st minute.
The last quarter of an hour was a rout as winger Thomas Lemar scored on a volley, then added a second goal thanks to Griezmann, and Mbappe, a second-half sub,
finished off the scoring in the 90th minute. France was back in first place as Sweden lost to Bulgaria, 3-2.
All the while, the market for French attackers went on. Earlier on Thursday,
Paris St. Germain completed its acquisition of Mbappe -- a loan deal that will become permanent next season for a fee of $214 million.
Meanwhile, Arsenal tried to pry Lemar away from
Monaco before the English window closed Thursday. It reportedly offered $110 million, but the deal could not get done in time.
Lemar had other business to attend to. Like putting French
doubters in their place.
fifa had them, what, 18th?
WoW; only 20% of the article touched on the performance. Nothing about either squads pros/cons.
You can watch the game on ESPN3. I haven't seen it, yet, but I'm definitely not surprised by the outcome 0-4.
Holland has become a joke and I lay much of the blame on the Dutch KNVB coaching academy for producing coaches who lack the capability of teaching the deeper insights of the game. They need to clean house. We have talented players but need to be taught by competent coaches. One of the problem is that the culture of soccer fan demands to see a high level soccer, which is represented by how Barcelona played during the Guardiola days. The dutch are not into a physical style and counter attacking soccer which takes less intelligence to play. You can compare the situation to a youth coach that wants to teach his player a smart ,controlled passing game but gets beat by youth team who out muscle ,out run and play little soccer. As Beckenbauer states ,'the dutch play almost a pure game of soccer'.
In order to teach this high level game, a much more difficult game to play, you need coaches( a la Guardiola types)
that have played at a high level game who understand all the finer and high level nuances of the game to be able to teach this to coaches at the KNVB coaching school.That is not happening.
I guess Holland doesn't have all the answers does it? Looks like Germany and France are much better at producing talented players.
And yet in hindsight not enough talent to beat Luxembourg! Lol. This is why we actually play the games!