Netherlands Holland Oranje France Tactics EURO 2024 0-0 Mbappé mask

Netherlands – France: No Mbappé No Goals (0-0)

Without Kylian Mbappé, this turned out to be a strange affair. An extreme off-the-ball Dutch game plan led to sustained French possession spells, but uncharacteristic turnovers and missed chances allowed the Dutch a foothold in the game. A debatably chalked off goal even led to a short Orange underdog winning sensation. In the end, both teams settled for a point, which means they’re basically qualified for the knockouts.

Tactical analysis and match report by Sander IJtsma.

We decided to make all of our EURO 2024 articles free to read. If you want to support our work, consider taking a subscription.


In chaos theory, the Butterfly Effect refers to the idea that the world is deeply interconnected, such that one small occurrence can influence a much larger complex system. Had Kylian not collided with Austria’s Kevin Danso in exactly such a way that he broke his nose – still quite a rare injury in football – France’s outlook for the remainder of the tournament would’ve been a bit different. Their game plan on the night would likely also have been different, more direct and more urgent. And with this draw, a French first place in the group stage is still up in the air going into the third round of matches. Such is the situation when your national team harbours one of the best players in the world.

The Dutch camp – understandably – was more focused on their own internal issues. Their significant issues off-the-ball in the Poland match held a right balance with a focus on some disappointing individual player performances. It’s not that Joey Veerman and Xavi Simons played well against Poland, but replacing Veerman with Jérémie Frimpong, and shifting Reijnders back into the double pivot and Simons to the ten spot, would never have the same kind of impact as addressing the main tactical issue: gaping spaces in defensive transitions.

Well, it would turn out The Netherlands turned up prepared for this game. Coming off 0-4 and 1-2 defeats to France – with Mbappé – in the qualifying group, the team had every right to prepare for holding off a far superior opponent. 

Ronald Koeman stuck to the nominal 4-2-3-1 formation of the Poland match, but in practice they formed a 4-4-2 off-the-ball for the majority of this match. Brighton’s Bart Verbruggen came off a positive performance and remained the preferred goalkeeper, with a four man defense of Denzel Dumfries, Stefan de Vrij, Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Aké. The double pivot now consisted of Jerdy Schouten and Tijjani Reijnders, who moved back a line with Xavi Simons shifting inside to play as the number ten. Cody Gakpo continued as wide left winger, while Jérémie Frimpong was a logical upgrade at the right wing over Xavi Simons with his pace offering more transition offence against superior opposition. Memphis led the line, after casually releasing a hit single earlier today, commenting on his own sweatband.

Without their star striker, France maintained the 4-2-3-1 shape from the Austria match, albeit with a shuffle of players of their own. Aurélien Tchouameni came into the side in the double pivot next to N’Golo Kanté, while Adrien Rabiot moved to the left wing, playing a very inside role. Antoine Griezmann played as the number ten, behind striker Marcus Thuram.



Blitz start

Inside the first minute, Holland’s game plan came to the fore. In a quick offensive transition, Xavi Simons played on Frimpong, who showcased his extreme pace, but saw his shot saved by Maignan. A glimpse of what was to come in the remainder of the match.

From that point on, the first half followed mostly the same pattern. The Dutch team retreated in a medium 4-4-2 block, offering the French central defenders time and space on the ball. Initially Kanté dropped next to them, but Deschamps quickly recognized that Kanté qualities are much more useful in his famous roaming-around-everywhere role on and off the ball. Covering an insane amount of ground, Kanté was everywhere, linking things together like glue, and fixing off-the-ball issues where needed.

The French, on their turn, did press high, but they mostly did so with an intent to dominate territory, and refrain their opponents from playing out of their own defensive half. Not intent on winning high turnovers, or better phrased, not willing to take the risks of chasing such turnovers, they blanket pressed the Orange team, and successfully established territorial dominance. 


Patient French

So far so good for the French, but on the ball they lacked urgency and wasted significant spells of possession circulating balls outside the Dutch block, rather than playing it into the box and taking risks on the ball. 

France’s best chance of the first half came in the fourteenth minute, as Rabiot was the one to finally pass a ball into the box. Thuram controlled with his back to goal and managed to connect with Rabiot’s run through a backheel pass. Rabiot squared it for Griezmann on the six-yard line, but for all his technical skills, Griezmann lost his balance and didn’t even get a shot off.

By contrast, the Dutch grasped every straw to create even the most optimistic goal scoring chances. Take their 22nd minute wide freekick, barely over the halfway line. Memphis whipped it long, where Van Dijk failed to head it back across goal. Most teams would have enough confidence creating chances from offensive play and use this freekick to build a sustained offensive play. Not the Dutch, who uncharacteristically whipped it in, underlying the low self-confidence in meeting the French toe-to-toe.


Transition chances

With the French dominating both possession and territory, but failing – unwilling? – to pass it into the box, the onus of their game plan was on safe possession. The Dutch stood firm in their medium defensive block, ready to pounce on every turnover opportunity, with tricky creative passers like Simons and Memphis ready to serve receivers Frimpong and Gakpo.

Ironically, both teams did very poorly at their key jobs. France kept turning the ball over before reaching the opposition box, and The Netherlands kept fluffing all of the transition offence opportunities they were granted.

While the individual player quality was clear to see, and both team’s game plans made considerable sense, poor execution meant they reached the half-time whistle with just a handful of scoring opportunities and a 0-0 score. 


Two teams in limbo

Early in the second half, we saw a few instances of high Dutch pressing, and how suicidally open they would then be. For example, the 51st minute three-on-three press left acres of space in an undermanned left halfspace and was immediately exploited by France. 

From then on, it was clear that pure transition offence was the only passable road to a result for the Dutch. The French, on their turn, played with less and less urgency, seemingly happy to take a draw, or a small win if it happened to fall their way.

Over time it became more and more puzzling what Koeman’s idea was behind the Dumfries-Frimpong duo on the right wing. Dumfries thrives in free space that was now occupied by Frimpong, who was making his familiar runs with bursts of dazzling speed. It did contribute to some offensive threat – look only at that first minute chance – but it put Dumfries in a very peculiar role as a central hub for ball progression from the back. 


Jérémie Frimpong - understandably - takes up the space that Dumfries would usually run into, turning him from a receiver into a passer and removing the better aspects of his game.

Jérémie Frimpong – understandably – takes up the space that Dumfries would usually run into, turning him from a receiver into a passer and removing the better aspects of his game.


Much more sense would Lutsharel Geertruida have made in this position, as he’s gracefully comfortable on the ball, and shines in moving into midfield when the situation demands. Geertruida came on in the 73rd minute as part of a triple substitution and immediately provided an upgrade in terms of the flow in possession. It would be very interesting to start him over Dumfries, move into midfield to create a situational back-three / box midfield in a 3-2-4-1 on the ball setup that would easily fall back into a 4-4-2 block off the ball.


French subs

The main card a manager can play to influence the game is probably the introduction of subs. As such, it was telling that Deschamps only used two of a potential five subs. A 75th minute double sub saw Kingsley Coman and Olivier Giroud replace Ousmane Dembélé and Marcus Thuram. With all the talent at his disposal, it looked like Deschamps was content enough with the match fizzling out to a goalless draw. In fact, if France earns a better result against Poland than Holland does against Austria – a reasonable assumption – winning or drawing wouldn’t make a difference.


Winning… or not

Both teams had their chances to win it during the second half. First, Griezmann mishit from close range to give Verbruggen a chance to save, after Kanté had provided the ultimate unselfish assist where he could also have shot himself from a brilliant Thuram flick.

Then, Xavi Simons shot a rebound low into the left-hand corner of the goal to celebrate his potential match winning goal. It ignited the longest VAR moment of EURO 2024, which underlined just how grey the decision was. After minutes of study, it was deemed that Dumfries – who was clearly offside – did interfere with Maignan’s space to dive and attempt to save the shot.

The final twenty minutes illustrated that the Dutch realised that a point was a positive result and their forcing things would only reduce their chances, something that Koeman clearly confirmed in his interview after the match. The French also played with a distinct lack of urgency and a weird match went on to a fitting closing stage to end goalless.



Takeaways

This was a really weird game. On their day, France would easily turn a territorial dominance into chances by passing it into the box and relying on individual brilliance. However, here they seemed shy to take that risk, and they clearly missed the chance creation that Mbappé would have offered with his runs on and off the ball. They were subdued and lacked urgency, suffered uncharacteristic turnovers, but also missed a few clear chances to win it.

The Dutch played a clear off-the-ball game, but were then unable to put things together when it mattered most. Memphis played a rather poor game, was quite passive off-the-ball and sloppy in transition offence. Still, the team displayed a proper level of tactical preparation for the underdog role in later stages of the tournament.

Results-wise, both teams are in a very good spot, with decent outlooks to finish first and second in the group, and matching up against a runner-up from either group F (Turkey / Portugal / Czech Republic / Georgia) or group E (Romania / Belgium / Slovakia / Ukraine).



We decided to make all of our EURO 2024 articles free to read. If you want to support our work, consider taking a subscription.

Use the arrows to scroll through all available match plots. Click to enlarge.
Check the match plots page for plots of other matches.

Sander IJtsma (43) is co-founder and data-specialist of Between the Posts. He is also the man behind 11tegen11, a company that provides player scouting advice and various other data services. Pioneer of the #autotweet to provide match plots on Twitter. Father of three. Now circling back to tactical writing, which was how it all started ten years ago. [ View all posts ]

Comments

Be the first to comment on this article

Leave a Reply

Go to TOP