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France won the World Cup without ever really playing football that their quality suggested. In the final, Croatia dominated for much of the match. Even after Antoine Griezmann's penalty, France played as the smallest side of the two. However, a victory is a victory, and France is world champion for the second time in its history. Regardless of this French team that does not meet the expectations suggested by the individual quality of its players, they won because this team, as disappointing as it may seem, agrees well.
One of the best examples of how France worked in the field was one of their favorite attack methods: the very ordinary and direct long ball to Olivier Giroud. This was not the most aesthetic option, but it was crucial for the France team.
Giroud was not the best striker available for France. This is not the most mobile individual and he often has failures that are so annoying that it seems that he is doing it to troll the watching world. He looks like a strange ball in a French team full of fast, super-technical and expressive strikers. But it is essential to their success.
Giroud is a big body that can occupy the defenders and give his teammates a very safe option to launch attacks. And it is perfect for the other strikers of France, especially Antoine Griezmann, who is much smaller, faster and whose game depends on the movement rather than facing the defenders.
Griezmann and Giroud are the modern version of the small and big attacker partnership. Giroud fights with the defenders, wins the headers and brings them back to Griezmann's path. Griezmann then takes the ball forward and the rest of the French players can participate in the attack. Giroud also does it for Kylian Mbappe and Blaise Matiudi when he has to open the ball. And if the attackers are far away, he holds it until they arrive or wins the foul while the defenders shoot and push him to recover the ball. Giroud only looks weird when it 's aesthetic, but in terms of the team' s sheer functionality, he was a confident presence.
The same idea works for the disjoint nature of wingers for France. Putting Blaise Matuidi, a natural central midfielder, in the left wing is a strange idea, but it's an idea that is made to reach a balance with Mbappe. What this does is that it forces the opposing teams to attack on one side, on the Mbappe side, because Matuidi, being more defensive, helps to close everything on the left. This makes the teams predictable and forces them to launch players on the side of the most dangerous attacker in France. It's a trap.
Yet even in times when opponents are trying to get off the left, France is comfortable winning over there, and they can quickly release Mbappe from the other side while the defenders rush to recover.
This plan is what created Pogba's goal in the final. The ball was won on the left, quickly sent to Pogba in the middle and Pogba hit a long diagonal ball to Mbappe who was head-to-head with a Croatian defender, with the rest of the Croatian defense stretched and sprinted to recover . Mbappe dribbled into the surface, cut it to Griezmann, who dropped it off for Pogba to shoot. The first attempt was blocked and he was able to score with the second.
The idea was to make the left side the safe side for France to maximize Mbappe's powers to the right. It also helps Lucas Hernandez to attack more on the left if necessary, catching up Matuidi's inability there, while Benjamin Pavard is more conservative on the right, leaving Mbappe go to the end of his heart without fearing that this side be exposed.
Mbappe's goal came from Hernandez, who drove and defeated several defenders on the left before moving to Mbappe at the top of the box. While he was doing this, Matuidi was standing deep under him and watching Mario Madzukic in case of counter.
Pogba and N & # 39; Golo Kante in the middle also helped maximize their respective strengths while hiding the weaknesses. Seeing that Pogba was moving deeper and asking to do less offensively, he felt like being shackled at first, but his relationship with Kante was one of the most fun things in France. .
Kante is a balloon genius and he is even good at advancing the ball, but it's not the pbader, the dribbler or the playmaker that Pogba is. Pogba, for all these qualities, still lacks a little defensive. It's not that he can not win the ball or follow his opponents, but this side of his game is under development. But together, the two form a really great, stable and fluid working relationship. Kante wins the ball and Pogba creates and releases the fronts of it.
Raphael Varane and Samuel Umtiti also complement each other, with the pbading of Umtiti and Varane's ability to cover and perform crucial tackles.
In one of my favorite books Dr. Seuss, I got in trouble when arriving at Solla Sollew one of the characters, an authoritative companion of the main character who wants to flee his problems, describes the partnership between the two as: "It's what is called team work.I provide the brain.You provide the muscles, aches and pains. . "
In the book, the partnership between the companion and the main character is too unequal to be considered a real team work, but the French national team won the World Cup by mastering concept.
Didier Deschamps often made France play as an underdog, but the team's configuration was in every player having a partner who helped to increase their game, rather than focusing on the qualities of a few individuals . Rather than building around one or two players, everyone in the team can be at its best because they have someone to cover for them if they fail. And so, a weird team, aesthetically disappointing but functional and victorious. And when everything works, as was the case in the second half against Croatia, they can be devastating.
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