Key points:
- Lack of width from France
- Switzerland bully Lenglet and Varane
- Rabiot is not a defender; barely a midfielder
- Both sides style of play is a reflection of their mentality
To accommodate Rabiot filling in at LWB, #FRA had to adjust their defensive structure.
They started in a back five but would have the ball sided wingback press the player in possession, joining the midfield line, forming a 4-4-2 as #SUI are forced to go backwards.
In doing this, #FRA give #SUI time to switch to the opposite flank, isolating the French central defenders as they change positions, making crosses into the box easy... as we saw.
#SUI had a very easy time progressing the ball up the left side.
Including both Rodriguez and Zuber was a brilliant idea as it allows Switzerland to play with two natural wide players on the left. I (@CamH___ ) did not expect this, I thought it was too aggressive.
Lenglet wasn't solely responsible for the first goal, #SUI did well to overload the leftflank.
With that said, Lenglet should not have been the central defender in a 3/5 man backline. He really struggled to win his duels.
Varane and Kimpembe did not shower themselves in glory either. As a matter of fact, the most composed member in the France backline was not even a defender.
With no natural width, France were easy to defend against.
This is how the #FRA attacking structure looked. They were far too predictable in their ball progression and #SUI defended brilliantly. They did struggle in some 1v1s,but given the quality of France, they can be proud.
When #FRA brought Coman on it changed the game. France were now able to force a #SUI wingback to mark him, giving Mbappe, Griezmann and Benzema space to run into the channels more freely.
We predicted an overreliance on individual ability in our preview. Deschamps has suffered an injury crisis at #EURO2020 but his tactical understanding of the game is suspect when we consider the resources he DOES have at his disposal.
Ultimately, France go out of Euro 2020 as a group of individuals, rather than a team, managed by a man who struggles to get the best out of all his players.
This current group of French players have won all there is together. A new direction in management is necessary.
After missing a penalty to further their lead, then conceding three goals afterwards, is a slippery slope to come up from.
Switzerland dug deep and found the strength to come back while France tuned out, did not respect their opponents, and failed to play like World Champions.
If you've enjoyed this thread, consider following and retweeting it as we will be doing post match threads for all the games during #EURO2020 , as well as match previews for all the upcoming match days on our website: pythagorasinboots.com/euro-2020/
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
🔴Sterling a world-class talent when in the mood
🔴3-4-3 pinned the Germans back
🔴Low's leaky backline bites again
🔴Grealish Game-Changer
🔴Back 5 helped English midfield (options)
Starting lineup thoughts, the Saka decision was brave and the correct one as he can penetrate space inside and outside. Perfect for a counter attack set up.
Abit too perfect as its effectiveness ended up pushing the Germans back...
As we can see the beauty of the 3-4-3 is that by matching the German formation, England went man for man and the Germans were forced to match them.
This freed up Saka and Sterling from double marking and they were dangerous in the 1st half. Germany got caught out several times.
Key points:
- Croatia looked to defend from the start
- Modric's attempts at man-marking expose Croatia
- Spain's off the ball movement
- Croatia COMEBACK after Spain collapse
- Football is mad
Croatia looked to defend from the moment the game began.
Spain's attacking structure resembles a 3-3-4 or 3-2-5, so to defend against this, #CRO would have their wide players Vlasic and Rebic track Gaya and Torres.
While the Croatian wide players defend the Spanish wide players, Kovacic, Modric and Brozovic were free to remain central and press Spain's midfield passing options.
As the game went on, Spain was able to move this defensive unit out of position and create space to play in.
🔴Portugal Xmas Tree (Off the Ball)
🔴Belgium bringing their wing backs inside
🔴Portugal build up is awful (Huge distances)
🔴Time to move on from Ronaldo?
🔴Portugal right flank poor.
Portugal adopted a low block in the first half and it was a 4-3-2-1 (Xmas Tree) when they did not have the ball.
The plan was to make Belgium keep passing into wide areas and flood the middle so that KDB and Hazard could be locked off.
This did not work when Belgium rotated the position of their forward line, confusing the Portuguese defence.
More importantly, Belgium outnumbered in the middle by bringing in Meunier and Thorgan, who was then able to shoot from distance shell-shocking Patricio and Dias.
⚽️Malen over Weghorst was a mistake, as Czech press and then dropping deep when Dutch got through made a physical presence up front important
⚽️Blind nullified and exposed
⚽️De Ligt 😱
The Czech man-marked the Dutch from Steklenburg's goal kicks adopting an aggressive 4-3-3 marking a 3-4-3. This made it impossible to play out from the back and forced the Dutch long... where there was no Weghorst as a target man.
This destroyed Dutch rhythm and confidence.
Before the sending off... Czech's failed to put enough men into the box despite dominating the right flank and putting in good crosses.
Soucek was not gambling enough, but after the sending off was another story as the absence of De Ligt have the Czech's confidence to bomb on.
Germany built up down the right predominantly and switched the ball out to the left whenever they wanted to go for the kill.
When this switch was made, Havertz went central and Muller took Havertz position. This confused Portugal's defence and Kai's physicality is so effective.
With Germany's front three moving so fluidly compared to the French game, it sucked Semedo inside to try and help the bewildered central defenders and CDM's.
This opened it up for Gosens to get in behind in that right wing/right half space.
Key points:
⚽️ Low block 5-3-2 plays a 4-4-2 diamond with little natural width = stalemate.
⚽️Dembele sub as predicted made a difference but Coman was a big miss
⚽️Hungary focus attack down the left
Hungary gave France an awful lot of trouble down their supposedly rock solid right side of defence. Varane looked very unfocused and laboured and he did not marshal this half space well.
Hungary used third man runs to exploit this briliantly. Credit especially to Fiola...
Why did France struggle to score? Digne was a decent selection but there was no wingers or a presence down the opposite flank stretching the game. Pogba too central, Pavard can't bomb on consistently.