WHY FRANCE FAILED TO REACH A THIRD CONSECUTIVE WORLD CUP FINAL

 

WHY FRANCE FAILED TO REACH A THIRD CONSECUTIVE WORLD CUP FINAL

France had seemed invincible in the tournament.It held an unblemished record and a combined 16-2 goal differential against their first six opponents.

Still  France lost to the Spaniards. 

The French defender Rayan Cherki puts it succinctly,"It's an immense disappointment. Today we lost against ourselves. We didn't lose against the referee. We didn't lose aginst Spain. We lost against ourselves. You all know that everyone was scared of us. The only team who were capable of eliminating us was ourselves. Today is terrible."

Kylian Mbappe says France simply didn't play well to reach a third consecutive final. He criticised France's work with the ball saying poor first touches and missed opportunities prevented his team from testing Spain when opportunities appeared.

Mbappe was candid. His blunt assessment was his team was "sloppy technically."

"Spain is a team who loves to have control of the game, control of the ball.That's what we let them do. We let the midfield too much time to play and at the end of the day they had quality to play. It's difficult when you don't change the play of Spain. We weren't at the level to go to the final."

"We didn't play the game we wanted, tecnically, tactically. When you don't do what you have to do in a World Cup semi final, you don't win." 

The France captain pointed to breakdowns in both the game plan and its execution. "We were three aginst two in midfield and against Spain, that's hard. Fabian and Rodri had plenty of time to play. There was a lack of communication on the press. I think we should have done man to man press and forced them to run with us."

Mbappe said France's plan had been to apply pressure high up the field and prevent Spain from settling into its preferred possession game. Instead, Spain regularly played through the press and quickly recovered the ball whenever France briefly regained it.

He concluded,"At the end of the day, you take all the glory when you win. When you don't win... it's part of the game. As the captain, I have to take all the responsibility and I have no problem with that. We wanted to go to the final. We didin't go."