From our special correspondent in Paderborn,
In a new configuration for Didier Deschamps and his players, until then unaccustomed to playing a third high-stakes group match, this meeting against Poland should have felt like a new start. Or just starting out, after two first drafts that aren’t really exciting, to stay measured and polite. A victory against a very average and already eliminated Poland, the return of the masked Mbappé, a few goals to silence the criticism of the lack of efficiency and that was it.
Except that almost the opposite happened on Tuesday, in the sweltering Westfalenstadion. If the Blues have still obtained crates of opportunities, the lack of efficiency against goal will start to weigh heavily on people’s minds. Didier Deschamps can try all the pirouettes he wants, arguing that the man of the match is none other than the Polish goalkeeper, the facts are there, stubborn, indisputable. In three matches, the Blues have hit 49 times on goal, for two pawns in total but none in the game.
If that was all there was to it, again. But it’s the overall copy that leaves you wondering. Despite a complete team, only missing Antoine Griezmann, whose coach had chosen to do without for the first time in a major competition in a high-stakes match, which is never a good sign, the Blues gave the The image of a group with no other ideas than to make a difference in (rare) individual exploits. That’s what the peno came from, after a successful lunge from Ousmane Dembélé returning from the locker room.
Bankruptcy at all levels
If the defensive solidity is still there – with two, three exceptions named Dayot Upamecano, guilty of a few unfortunate losses of balls and a very avoidable foul in the area leading to the Polish equalizer – the rest of the table has what it takes give even the most optimistic people a cold sweat. Even Rabiot and Kanté, the rare bright spots in the tricolor grayness over the first two matches, were missed on Tuesday afternoon. To close this grim assessment, let us add to this the lack of foresight of Deschamps in these tactical choices in the second period.
By deciding to take off Bradley Barcola, who was one of the few in great form, to move Mbappé to the left and to bring on Olivier Giroud, who is increasingly looking his age, in the wake of the opening goal, at a time when it would have been necessary to nail the Polish coffin, DD broke the little momentum that was finally driving his team. “We had to push to score that second goal,” admitted the young PSG striker in the mixed zone. “I think we did a bit too much management, it’s a shame. Sometimes, without even wanting to, you manage the match.”
As for Youssouf Fofana, the other youngster sent to the fire in front of the media after the match, he suggested aloud what has been whispering internally lately: that the training sessions lack intensity and does not help the substitutes to make the difference at the end of the match. “The intensity is different from training. I want to get back to the 87th but if the others don’t follow me, I’m not going to attack alone,” declared the Monegasque midfielder without tongue in cheek.
Communication in unison
But apart from that, everything is fine. At least that’s what the whole group said after the match. “I’m not worried at all,” Fofana began, followed closely by Barcola: “We don’t have to worry, we have a very, very good foundation. We’re going to work even harder in training and be even better.” “We’re a great team and a great team always gets back up,” Camavinga concluded.
But the highlight of the show goes to Didier Deschamps, king of smoke among kings, who came to say at a press conference without shaking his calves that he was “not disappointed at all” after this match (which we yet all seen). “We did what we had to do,” he continued, as a second stab in our little bruised hearts. We suspect that this is largely a sham and that the refocusing promises to be difficult once the 36-hour rest period granted to the players and their loved ones, who have come to join them at base camp, has passed. But it’s sometimes difficult, especially after such a poor performance, to be taken for fools like this.
Heavy, heavy and heavy
Because beyond the poor performance, this draw sends the Blues directly into the mouths of the big names, with a possible France-Portugal in the quarters and a France-Germany or Spain in the semis. “I’m not sure that these nations are very happy to see us in their part of the picture either,” Fofana dodged when it was pointed out to him that they had made their task very complicated with this (no) draw.
“A new competition will begin. The impressions of the first round are not always those of the rest,” brushed off DD, implying that his team still had the cards in hand to wake up and reveal themselves. He’s not entirely wrong, but now it’s netless. And from what we have seen of his team since arriving in Germany, the reasons for hope are thinner than the reasons for panic. Unless all this is perfectly calculated on the part of the coach who, knowing his players are totally “matrixed” by his cautious vision of football, rubs his hands at the idea of playing teams who will have the ball to better steal them. in transition with its front beeps.
We could be wrong, of course – and deep down, we really hope so – but at the time when we are writing these lines and when the Blues must surely be struggling to find sleep in their rooms in Bad Lippspringe, the feeling that The main thing is that the construction site is immense before considering a summer of glory and glitter. For that, we will have to do everything a little more, do everything a little better. And even much more than that.