FIFA World Cup: France exploit superior England's flaws to reach the semis

So much of the pre-game talk for the England vs France quarter-final in the FIFA World Cup 2022 was centred around Kylian Mbappe and the threat that he posed. It was another indication of the stature that the 23-year-old forward has attained. He’s undoubtedly the best player going around in world football. FIFA World Cup:  Fixtures  |  Results  |  Points Table  |  Squads  |  Records But the last quarter-final of the Qatar tournament did not belong to Mbappe. For Kyle Walker and England’s defence did a good job on him. And yet it’s France that emerged 2-1 victorious , booking a spot against Morocco in the last four stage. In all honesty, it was England, who lost the match. Being the better side throughout the game, Gareth Southgate’s side failed to take their chances whereas France triumphed by being more clinical and once again highlighting why they are the defending champions and now the clear favourites to win the coveted trophy in Qatar.Kane’s penalty miss To put it simply, England lost the game when skipper Harry Kane missed the second penalty of the match in the 84th minute. Trailing 2-1, that was England’s chance to draw level and make their quality have a telling effect on the result. Southgate was brave in his team selection and stuck to the back-four formation despite the Mbappe threat. England had a jittery start and Aurelien Tchouameni opened the scoring with a 17th-minute strike from outside the box. But from thereon, it was all England. Bukayo Saka dazzled with his pace and ability to run behind France left-back Theo Hernandez. Kane himself had a long-ranger saved by Hugo Lloris. The England striker also had a closer-ranger save by Lloris after the attacker beat defender Dayot Upamecano in the box. Eventually, the pressure had its impact. Tchouameni brought Saka down in the box and Kane scored the leveller from the spot in the 54th minute. He did excellently well to outfox his longtime Tottenham Hotspur teammate Lloris to score the goal.

Exactly 30 minutes later, Kane had a second spot kick. Theo went body slam on substitute Mason Mount and though the referee missed it initially he pointed to the spot after a lengthy VAR review. Penalties are often deemed a ’lottery’ by casual observers but Kane’s miss, when England desperately needed to level again, is the perfect exhibition of how spot kicks are the biggest test of nerves. Having played for Spurs for so long together, Kane and Lloris are well-versed with each other. For the first penalty, Kane decided to stick to his favourite left side while Lloris dived to the wrong end. To do it all over again, it was a pressure cooker situation. Kane had a choice, but he stuck to his favourite side again. Loris was not going to make a second wrong guess and hence dived to the side of the shot but in an attempt to keep it out of the goalie’s reach, Kane fired it sailing over the post.

Just as Kane missed his penalty, the bad memories came rushing back: The Euro 2020 final loss on penalties to Italy last year; the elimination from the 2006 World Cup after misses in the shootout against Portugal; the 1998 World Cup shootout loss to Argentina. In short, penalties remain England’s kryptonite. Midfield maestro missing But was the penalty miss the only reason for the defeat? Despite all the chances and attacking threats, England failed to close the game. It has become something of a tradition for the Gareth Southgate side against top teams. And it’s here that France exploited the flaws in their opposition to come out on top despite being dominated through the game. At the heart of France’s narrow escape was Antoine Griezmann, the attacker who has now graduated to become a ball-controlling midfielder. The Frenchman assisted both of the goals but even more importantly kept England’s defence guessing on a night when England managed to successfully keep Mbappe quiet.

Griezmann’s movement as a floating midfielder became a nuisance for the backline, his crosses posed a constant danger and he was the conductor for almost everything good France did in the attack. England lacked a player of Griezmann’s quality. Despite having 14 attempts at goal as compared to France’s nine, England created very few meaningful chances inside the box. Most of their attempts were from outside the box as they failed to create a slick move to stun the French defenders. More than half of England’s attempts were from outside the box. They were left depending on penalties for goals. For France, close to 70 per cent of attempts came from inside the penalty box. And one of those was buried by Olivier Giroud in the 78th minute, which eventually proved to be the winner in the game.

England had the chances. France had the killer instinct, nerves and game management. The trademark of the champions. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .