Twenty years ago, 30 kilometres from Borussia Dortmund, Didier Deschamps played his first major final as head coach. His Monaco side suffered a 3-0 defeat to Jose Mourinho's Porto in Gelsenkirchen, the most upset final of the Champions League era. Looking at the game from the perspective of 2024, it is surprising that both managers showed an attacking style of play.
Didier Deschamps is now labeled as the most conservative manager in the top arena, even more explosive than Jose Mourinho. Considering he is France's longest-serving manager, winning the World Cup in 2018, leading them to the final in 2022, losing only on penalties and playing in the Euro 2016 final, his record is definitely tough. Even if France had poor major results in 2008, 2010 and 2012, we should not underestimate his achievements.
Didier Deschamps played the same as he does now, never caring if he looked good or not. But at this European Championship, the ugly spectacle was not the only criticism he received. Now, the fear is that the French team is not only playing boring, but also at that real level.
After three rounds of group play, they haven't put in a really convincing performance. With a 1-0 win over Austria, they took an early lead and it was an ugly spectacle. In a 0-0 draw with the Netherlands, they had to be thankful that Simmons' goal was blown away. At Borussia Dortmund, they stumbled to a 1-1 draw with an out-of-game Poland side.
Poland goalkeeper Skorupski was high to the end, and the French team was very unlucky, and the penalty seemed to be a little wronged. Despite all the objective factors, it is fair to say that the French team has not played well enough so far.
In the past 10 years, in the international arena, "playing hard + superstar flashing into 1" is a very feasible strategy. The question now is, are international competitions and club competitions becoming more and more alike?
Judging from the group stage of the European Cup, many teams have played actively, the "weak team" is not weak, the pressing is fierce, the offensive routines are many, the team cooperation is more, and there are often super-level performances. However, it's hard to see these highlights in the French team.
The attacking arrow Mbappe wants to come almost everything on his own, retreats, pulls to the left, inserts and shoots from distance. Just before half-time, he got a shot on target before team-mate Balcora.
Balcola was impressive but not a good finisher, which is understandable given that he has only played in the top flight for 18 months. For Dembele, 27, though, there are no excuses. In the first half, N'Golo Kante sent Dembele a solo shot, who fired an outrageous shot.
His crosses were even worse. Seven years ago, Dembele shone in this stadium, and Barcelona spent more than 100 million euros for him. Seven years later, Dembele still seems to be a straight-line demoman. Kiwior had no need to foul Dembele and send a penalty and Mbappe converted. That should be the only way Dembele can be involved in scoring goals right now.
N'Golo Kante was France's best player in the first two games, and once again his dribbling and attacking ability shone brightly. However, he had three passes that were almost embarrassingly bad.
France do have players who can string together the attack. Olivier Giroud has been a substitute this year, but he is still very contained. Marcus Thuram managed to play Giroud's role against the Netherlands, with his back in the pile. Antoine Griezmann has now completely transformed into a midfielder, no longer an attacker, able to subtly pass the ball into the opposition box. He should have been rested instead of abandoned.
The French team is used to being out of form in the knockout stages, and there is no shortage of teams in history who did not play well in the group stage and then went on to get better. The most typical is the Portuguese team 8 years ago, which drew 3 consecutive draws in the group stage, qualified 3rd in the group, and finally won the championship.
But we can't just think it's okay to play well in the group stage, because the French team is really poor. They are in the same half as Spain, Germany and Portugal, with the latter three teams all in form in the group stage. France still have a chance to win the title. If they don't win the title in the end, the reason seems to be obvious - they can't win against weak teams, they can't score goals, and they only scored 2 goals in 3 group games, 1 own goal and 1 penalty.
For a team with such a high level of attacking talent, one can't help but miss France in 2000 and coach Didier Deschamps in 2004 in such a goal-scoring tournament.