Norway – France: The Vikings Rest, while Dembélé Feasts (1-4)

France hadn’t won the 3rd group game of a major tournament since the 2006 World Cup, but usually, they’re the nation resting players at that point. Instead, it would be Norway who brought out the B-team as Erling Haaland and Martin Ødegaard were given a reprieve ahead of the Round of 32. France unsurprisingly came out top in the battle of transitions as they put an emphatic end to their 20-year tradition. 

Tactical analysis and match report by Nick Hartland.

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After a 27-year absence from the World Cup, Norway have ensured that coming into the final group match, they’ll once again be playing knock-out football. Victories over Iraq and Senegal left a shootout for top spot in Group I with leaders France. A win would see them play rivals Sweden, while a defeat or a draw would mean a match-up with the Côte d’Ivoire. 

France’s preparation for the final group match was less than ideal, but some things are more important than football. Manager Didier Deschamps returned to France during the week after his mother passed away. He would be absent from the bench, but not in spirit, with Aurélien Tchouaméni telling the press, “We have a mission, and we want to make him proud.”

Deschamps’ assistant Guy Stéphan would be on the sidelines for France, as Les Bleus lined up with four changes from the 3-0 win over Iraq. Maxence Lacroix and Théo Hernandez replaced William Saliba and Lucas Digne in defense. In midfield, Adrien Rabiot was rested with Tchouaméni partnering Manu Koné. Up front, Désiré Doué returned in place of Bradley Barcola to join attackers Michael Olise, Ousmane Dembélé, and Kylian Mbappé.

Norway head coach Ståle Solbakken set out his stall, making ten changes to the side that won the previous two games. In goal, Egil Selvik, with a defense of Fredrik André Bjørkan, Henrik Falchener, Leo Østigård, and the last man standing from the other group games, Fredrik Aursnes. In midfield, Kristian Thorstvedt, Patrick Berg, and Thelo Aasgaard. Completing the line-up, Andreas Schjelderup and Oscar Bobb on the wings, with Jørgen Strand Larsen up top. 

France light up Norway in transition 

Twenty seconds was all it took for Mbappé to show that Les Bleus meant business. Following a marauding run down the right flank, the France captain rattled the crossbar. France continued as they started. They dominated the opening exchanges by controlling the ball in and around the final third, and penned Norway into a deep shape that offered few outlets to release pressure and escape the wall of blue. 

France were suffocating with the ball, and without it. They were quick to counterpress when losing possession and looked the sharper of the two teams when reacting to the second ball. Albeit that was not exactly surprising when you consider that this was France’s A-Team versus Norway’s B-Team, who had largely not played a minute of competitive action. 

Turnovers were to be Norway’s expected weapon with the ball, but defending them would turn into their weakness. Shortly after recovering possession, a poor pass from Aursnes was knocked loose by Koné before it could reach its intended target of Berg. The ball drifted into no man’s land. Mbappé was the quickest to respond, launching a first-time pass down the right for Dembélé to latch onto. The Ballon d’Or winner was in space after Bjørkan mistakenly stepped up, anticipating Aursnes’s pass would reach its mark. 

Bjørkan’s movement was slight, but football is a game of fine margins. It forced him to defend Dembélé on the back foot and unravelled his team’s rest defense by providing a weak spot for the winger to rapidly advance. The Frenchman slipped into the box and fired home to give France the lead in the 7th minute. 

7th minute: Lead-up to France’s opener. France lose the ball with Aursenes gaining possession. Hernandez and Doué counterpress, forcing the full back into a poor pass. Koné does enough to prevent the pass reaching its recipient. Norway have numbers around where the ball ends up, but they’re lacking that bit of sharpness. Mbappé responds first. Bjøkan steps up, anticipating Norway gaining control and that he will need to create a triangle with Aasgaard and Schjelderup. Fine margins. 

Upamecano struggles; Norway don’t capitalize

Following the goal, France showed an exploitable weakness with Upamecano having an off-night on the ball. Norway spent most of their time in a low block, but Solbakken has set his side up to defend in a hybrid press. A heavy touch from the French center-back was a clear trigger for Norway to advance into a man-to-man press, and the defender was caught out a number of times in quick succession as he tried and failed to progress the ball out of the defense. 

Norway’s decision-making after winning the ball let Upamecano off the hook as they failed to capitalize on the advantage. They made sloppy passes that allowed France to recover their position and protect their box from any encroachment. Instead, it looked as if Norway’s best chances would come from set-plays, as Strand Larsen came agonizingly close to leveling the scores in the 14th minute, after he fired over the bar following his teammate’s effort to keep the ball alive during the second phase of a free-kick. 

12th minute: Norway’s hybrid press is triggered. A heavy touch from Upamecano when receiving the ball sees Strand Larsen trigger the press. He escapes pressure by playing the ball back to the keeper. Bobb cuts off access to Lacroix, while Upamecano is left free to receive the pass back from Maignan, for the next phase of the press. 

There was an innate risk anytime Norway advanced up the pitch, opening up space behind them if they lost the ball. France’s threat in transition was omnipresent. Les Bleus have an attack of pacey goalscorers backed by players with the ability to play the long vertical. Within seconds, Norway could lose possession outside the France box and then be defending an attack on their own area. There were warning signs in the minutes before Norway conceded their second, but a warning doesn’t necessarily mean there was much that they could do to prevent it. 

On the edge of his own box, Doué pick-pocketed Thorsvedt and then played a short pass to Olise. The Bayern Munich man picked out Mbappé, who was being man-marked by Østigård. The center-back dragged Mbappé down, but he moved the ball wide to Dembélé, and the referee played advantage. Dembélé was left one-on-one with Bjørkan. The fullback’s reluctance to close down the winger even as he tucked inside meant there was a pocket of space for the Frenchman to try his luck from range and double the lead. 

Dembélé was still getting back into position after celebrating with the France bench as Norway halved the deficit. They attacked down Dembélé’s flank from kick-off and took full advantage of the winger’s absence, slipping the ball into the box for Aasgaard to give some peril back to a game that was sorely lacking it. 

France against the low block

France’s goals had all come from attacking in transition, in the moment when Norway’s defense unfurled. The gaps that had been denied by the low block appeared for the French attackers. However, France’s third of the evening would come against Norway’s deep shape and demonstrate what makes this such an irresistible side; their versatility in attack. 

France’s in possession structure against the low block prioritised shifting the ball from side to side and probing into the box. They wanted to move the defenders and create wide overloads, particularly on the right flank, where Norway looked at their weakest. Often, they were creating three versus twos with Koundé overlapping Dembélé and one of Koné or Tchouaméni drifting wide. It put Norway in a difficult situation; if they committed an extra man to prevent the overload, then a weakness elsewhere would occur. 

Against another team, perhaps you would take that risk, but when France have so many threats spaced out, overcommitting to protecting one superstar leaves you equally vulnerable to another elsewhere. This is one of the keys to Deschamps system, it’s how having so many talented attackers works rather than suffocates the team. There is this underlying tension when defending against them that any proactive decision will provide a weak spot for some equally talented superstar. 

In the 32nd minute, France created the right-sided overload and fed the ball to Dembélé in the box. Norway decided to step off the winger and try to contain him from advancing, but seemingly had not learned from his previous two strikes that giving him a pocket of space was simply inviting him to shoot, and so he did to get his third of the evening. 

32 minutes: France attack the low block. Koné switches play to Tchouaméni and into the right-sided overload. Tchouaméni passes to Dembélé. Koundé attacks the box, eventually going wide to try and pin the left-back. 

Training exercise

At halftime, Solbakken took off Thorsvedt and the struggling Bjørkan and brought on Morten Thorsby and Marcus Holmgren Pedersen. There had been a speed and vitality to the first half, but that was lost during the break. France looked content with the two-goal lead, and their focus inevitably and understandably drifted. They didn’t play with the same intensity, because why would they? They had already secured passage to the next round. Why risk your body in a game that had lost a lot of its meaning when Norway decided to field their second string? 

The result was that Norway looked like a much-improved side in the second half as they controlled the ball for long stretches, forcing France into a more passive 4-4-1-1/4-4-2 shape, with Olise either stepping up beside Mbappé or tucking in behind him. France were put under pressure early in the half and conceded a penalty when Hernandez brought down Bobb. It had the smell of a turning point to it as Strand Larsen stepped up, but his effort was woefully slow and easily saved by Mike Maignan. 

The game fell into a training ground pattern. France spent the majority of the half defending from a low to medium block (which would press at times), while Norway developed chances. Stéphan brought on Rayan Cherki and Bradley Barcola for Olise and Dembélé to add a bit of life into the attack around the midway point, but even that couldn’t break the game out of its lethargy. 

France would add to their total when Doué headed home in injury time to give a flicker of life to a half that felt like a forgone conclusion. We’re left to wonder whether we would have been in for a more entertaining end if Norway hadn’t missed that penalty? 

Takeaways

The decision by Solbakken to rest his players ahead of the knockout rounds meant that there was very little that could be gleaned from this performance. The Vikings will be a far better and far more cohesive side when they come up against the Côte d’Ivoire, and they will feel that they have landed a far more favorable side of the bracket. It’s understandable that with only four days of rest between this game and the match against the Ivory Coast, why Norway made this decision, but it meant that a game that had something at stake was instead a dead rubber. 

Similarly, with Deschamps not on the bench and coming up against a second-string side, what can we realistically take away from this France performance, especially when they switched off at halftime? Well, there are a few defensive mistakes that will need to be ironed out. There are a couple of question marks over the fullbacks, who both made errors (while their replacements aren’t exactly inspiring). Still, this feels a bit like nitpicking. On the whole, the group stages have shown the threat that this France squad possesses and why they should still be considered favorites. 

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