France beat Belgium to reach the quarterfinals of the European Championship.
After the game, the most authoritative sports media in France, "Team Newspaper", scored Saliba with the highest score, and the lowest score was obtained by Griezmann and Thuram Jr., both of which were 3 points.
This is Thuram Jr.'s worst match for France after the first game.
It's no surprise that the newspaper has always been unfriendly to Inter strikers and has always been rated low.
However, this time, the criticism from the media was echoed by Deschamps, who also criticized the players after the game. You must know that after the first game, when the media criticized Thuram, Deschamp directly scolded the reporter and lost his temper in order to protect the players.
Deschamps said: "Marcus should do better. He's improved a lot at Inter and he's shown the same quality when he's with us, the only problem is he's a little bit shy and he has to do more. ”
The straightforward translation of this sentence is: This is here to fight with bayonets and fight, so shy, should you be here to fall in love!
Are these criticisms justified? Personally, I think: Yes.
So far, in the shooting and scoring list of this European Cup, Thuram Jr. is tied for the seventh most in the competition with 11 shots, and in the top 10 of the shooting list, 8 people have scored (Mbappe, Havertz, Ndoye, Kane, Eriksen, Fabian Ruiz, De Bruyne, Olmo), only Ronaldo has 20 shots and Thuram has 11 shots and has not yet broken the fast. Considering that nine of Thuram's 11 shots were taken from inside the box, it can't be said that he didn't get a chance, which is a bit embarrassing indeed.
Carlo Ancelotti has a good saying: "The job of a modern striker is not only to score goals, but to serve the team is perhaps even more important." But for the strikers, if you don't score, it makes all the problems difficult." Now Thuram is feeling this difficulty.
Specifically, in the battle between France and Belgium, Thuram Jr. got 4 chances to hit the goal, two of which were golden opportunities.
It was Kounde who delivered a precise cross from the flank, and Thuram Jr. headed in front of the goal near the line of the six-yard box.
For this kind of ball, the optimal solution is to push in directly; The sub-optimal solution is to be within the range of the goal frame, even if it is saved by the goalkeeper, there is still a chance for the French team to make up the shot; The worst thing is to fly directly to the top.
Both times Thuram filled in the worst answers.
In fact, if he had given a little effort, the French team would not have relied on some accidental own goals to advance before the end of the game. Therefore, Deschamps's criticism is not untargeted.
This really exposes one of Thuram's shortcomings: the header is really bad.
Statistics show that since his debut, Thuram Jr. has played a total of 329 games for the club and national team (official matches), scored 80 goals and completed 53 assists. Of those 80 goals, 56 per cent were scored with the left foot, 33 per cent with the right foot and 11 per cent with a header. As for Inter Milan, he scored 14 Serie A and Champions League goals for the Nerazzurri, including 10 with his right foot, three with his left foot, and just one with his head. It is true that Thuram, who turned out to be a winger, is far inferior to a serious centre-forward, and even worse than a short striker like Lautaro (who scored 21 per cent of goals).
On Twitter, Thuram's die-hard fan-made highlights pointed out that Thuram Jr. has three major shortcomings in reaching the top: the timing of the jump is always too early or too late; Always top the side or bottom of the ball; Compared to the average center, he closed his eyes before his head touched the ball when he rushed to the top many times.
In a word: when it comes to topping, he is not a skilled worker.
If Thuram's header was close before this season, it wasn't a particularly big problem. Any player has both long boards and short boards.
But now, Thuram's shortcomings have troubled Inter Milan and the French team.
Over the past year, Inzaghi Jr. has been making changes in Inter's forward line, allowing Thuram to try more forward and Lautaro to try to drop back more – and the initial positioning of the two was originally reversed, with the coach taking them out of their comfort zone in the hope of helping them find new areas for improvement.
The same is true in the French team, compared with the activity area of the French team's forward three-star, it can be seen that the task given by Deschamps to Thuram is to break forward.
In more academic parlance, it's called "making space for Mbappe and Griezmann"; In plain words, this job is called "hand-to-hand combat, kicking, being cannon fodder, neng those defenders, so that the two supergiants can play more comfortably".
Because of this, Thuram Jr. is always in the middle of the defenders, and it is difficult to get a shot from his teammates in the dense, thick-legged penalty area; If there is an opportunity, it will be more of this kind of crosses on the top three to feed the ball, and the shortcomings of Thuram Jr.'s header will be magnified.
To sum up, Inzaghi Jr. has always wanted Thuram to complete the transformation, believing that he has the physique, speed, long legs, skills, and all the qualities to be a good striker. Facts have proved that in the one-year training of Inter, Thuram Jr. has indeed made great progress in the "main business" of modern center forwards such as back, carrying people, and making balls. However, we still have to find a way to solve the problem of poor heading, otherwise, this will plague Thuram's transformation ceiling, and it will also affect whether his value can continue to rise a wave.