Spain – France: Suffering Without Success (2-1)

A clash of styles was promised as the exciting Spain took on a French side that has often been painful to watch in recent weeks. We got just that in an enthralling first half in which the game swung both ways, but when the roles were reversed in the second period, the Spaniards’ superior versatility won the day.

Tactical analysis and match report by Neel Shelat.

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

With five wins out of five, Spain absolutely marched their way to the semifinals. They were drawn into what seemed to be the group of death but turned out to be a cakewalk for them due to weakened opponents, though their win over the strong-looking hosts Germany in the quarterfinal made it clear that they were the team to beat.

France promised to pose a very different challenge as the best defensive side at the Euros, although their attack was severely misfiring. They had just about managed to grind out the results needed to get to the semifinal nevertheless, but they knew a much more well-rounded performance would be required to reach another final.

Injury and suspensions forced Spain to make a few changes to what was a set starting lineup. Unai Simón stayed in goal but Jesús Navas and Nacho had to be drafted in as both Dani Carvajal and Robin Le Normand were suspended, with Aymeric Laporte and Marc Cucurella making up the rest of the defense. Rodri had Dani Olmo and Fábian Ruiz ahead of him in midfield as Pedri picked up a tournament-ending injury in the previous match, but the front three remained unchanged as Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams flanked Álvaro Morata.

France made two changes as Ousmane Dembélé was rewarded for his strong substitute performance in the quarterfinal with a starting spot in place of Antoine Griezmann, whilst Adrien Rabiot replaced Eduardo Camavinga in midfield. Jules Koundé, Dayot Upamecano, William Saliba and Theo Hernández made up the back four ahead of Mike Maignan again, N’Golo Kanté and Aurélien Tchouaméni were the other two midfielders, and Randal Kolo Muani and Kylian Mbappé made up the rest of the attack.

Gaps in the French block

A solid defensive block was going to be the key to France’s success on the night, but right from the off, they had problems. They attempted to adopt a player-oriented approach in midfield having matched their opponents numerically, but Spain found it very easy to play right through them with some very simple movements.

5th minute: Spain play right through the middle of the French block as Fábian pulls wide and drags Tchouaméni out of position, opening up the gap for Laporte to find Olmo between the lines.

Using their usual in-possession system, Spain concentrated play down the left where Fábian dropped to connect, Cucurella advanced with Williams tucking inside and Laporte offered great progression through passing and carrying. At the same time, they also retained a threat on the other side as the Al Nassr defender could consistently find Lamine Yamal with his pinpoint switches. The Barcelona starlet would always be isolated with a fullback as Mbappé did not track back on the flank.

All of these details contributed to the creation of the game’s first big chance which developed from the above situation. Olmo received the ball and played it on to Williams, who found the overlapping Cucurella. A cross eventually came in from the left but was overhit, so Lamine Yamal picked it up on the right, chopped inside and delivered his trademark inswinger to the far post, where Fábian arrived but blazed over.

Spain’s world-class tempo regulation

Just a few minutes later, that chance would be mirrored at the other end as Mbappé isolated Navas and chipped a ball to the far post, where Kolo Muani made sure of heading home. Just like that, France took the lead with their first shot of the game. That was the perfect outcome for them as they could now double down on their defend-deep-and-counterattack approach.

Didier Deschamps’ side did get into some promising positions on the break, but Spain could not afford to be too spooked by that and had to keep attacking. Throughout the tournament, they have shown world-class tempo regulation across various game states and match situations, and once again, they did the trick.

Besides speeding up their play, Luis de la Fuente made a slight tweak to their fullbacks’ attacking roles that made all the difference. Initially, only one of them got forward at a time – and it was almost always Cucurella as Navas stayed deep and wary of Mbappé’s counterattacking threat. After the goal, though, both of them began to advance more freely.

France could respond by getting Dembélé to track back even more on their right and maintain numerical parity there, but they were never going to ask Mbappé to put in a defensive shift on the left wing. So, Navas’ advances often attracted the attention of Hernández, freeing up Lamine Yamal to drift inside with Rabiot desperately trying to track him. If you think back to his wonderstrike, you will recall that he managed to create a bit of separation by twisting Rabiot inside out before letting fly.

25 meters away, 102 km/h speed, a 6rps spin.

Incredible goal by Lamine Yamal. pic.twitter.com/nlYKwXLCTn

— Barça Universal (@BarcaUniversal) July 9, 2024

The second goal was also created down Spain’s right. Once again, it began with Lamine Yamal on the ball infield, but this time it was worked out wide to Navas who managed to put a cross in. That was half headed away, but it only broke for Olmo who took a couple of wonderful touches before firing it in.

Having flipped the scoreline on its head, Spain’s job was far from finished. They now had a lead to protect, for which a much slower and risk-averse approach was needed.

France fail in the role reversal

One of the very first sequences of the second half suggested how the game was going to develop. France had a throw in high on the left and sent a lot of bodies around the ball, but Spain still managed to recover possession and play their way out of pressure before Olmo could carry forward in transition. He looked for the run of Williams down the left and very nearly found him but for Maignan’s sliding tackle.

Clearly, though, the roles were going to be reversed from the initial situation. Spain were the ones who could now pose a counterattacking threat, whilst France had to try and keep more of the ball and sustain attacking pressure. De la Fuente’s side even went above and beyond as they used their possession very well to take the sting out of the game by circulating securely, although it was France’s weakness that allowed them to do so.

Prior to the match, Deschamps had suggested that even Mbappé at 50% was as good as any other attacker at 100%, and whilst that may be true in an attacking sense, that was certainly not the case out of possession. His rather pedestrian involvement without the ball meant that Spain had absolutely no chance of pressing the technically excellent Spaniards, who could easily work their way out against a half-hearted press.

Worse yet, France could pose little attacking threat with sustained possession because they barely had anyone to occupy the box against Spain’s compact 4-4-2 defensive block. The only real box presence in their starting lineup was Kolo Muani, who was taken off in the first round of substitutions for a winger in Bradley Barcola, meaning Mbappé was now the central striker. As a result of all of this, France could still only threaten in transition even when they had to chase the game.

The World Cup finalists ultimately did create a couple of decent chances, but they could not conjure up anything clear-cut and ultimately were deservedly beaten on the night.

Takeaways

Almost since the first week, Spain have clearly been the best team at the Euros so their spot in the final is thoroughly deserved. To add to that, they have gotten through the significantly tougher side of the bracket and overcome very strong opposition of different sorts between Germany and France, so they seem ready for anything. Their initial game plans have been on point, their ability to tweak things and regulate tempo across different game states has been brilliant, and they can threaten opponents both with settled possession and in transition. Surely, then, they will be the clear favorites regardless of who they come up against in the final.

For France, all the suffering has proven futile. After their last game, we said that a result against Spain would be the only way for Deschamps to justify his stodgy approach, and he came quite close to getting it. France’s defense was never really breached as such but they still conceded twice to two brilliant pieces of individual play. If not for those, they themselves might well have gotten another on the break and seen out a comfortable win. However, once they were trailing, they never looked likely to come back due to their inability to change their approach. So, at the end of the day, it was versatility that proved to be the difference between the two teams.

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.