KYLIAN MBAPPE HAS not had a good European Championship but it’s had a heroic quality all the same.
He has scored only once, from the penalty spot against Poland – despite taking more shots than anyone else at the tournament bar noted have-a-go-hero, Cristiano Ronaldo – and was substituted for the final half of extra-time in the quarter-final win over Portugal.
In this championship of underwhelming stars, however, Mbappe has a more mitigation than most. Most obviously, he is injured. He has been nursing a back complaint throughout the tournament and has been limited by his broken nose.
Having missed the second group game against Netherlands, Mbappe has been playing with a protective mask, though it’s not all that protective. When Mbappe got his face in the way of a Bernardo Silva header in the quarter-final, he fell to the ground in agony.
Randal Kolo Muani says some of the French players have tried on the mask and found it “a horror.” Mbappe has said the sweat builds up and stings his eyes, and the mask is occluding his peripheral vision.
And while he is unhelpfully tunnel-visioned on the pitch, he has been warning everyone to keep an eye on the extreme sides of the spectrum off the pitch. Mbappe put himself under more pressure than is typical even for the French captain in joining many team-mates in unambiguous condemnations of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN).
He said prior to the first round of elections that he hoped he would still be proud to be French once the voting was over and then described the RN majority forecast after the first round of elections was a “catastrophe”, telling everyone to get out and vote in the second round.
Several senior RN figures lined up to criticise Mbappe, with Le Pen herself saying he should show “restraint”, claiming he is too rich to speak for the majority of the French people.
But following Le Pen’s rout in Sunday’s second round of voting, with turnout at its highest for 40 years, it’s clear that Mbappe and his team-mates do speak for the people.
So all together now: Liberté, égalité, Mbappé.
So even if Mbappe does not score again and France are eliminated tonight, he can be said to have had a Good Tournament.
Not that semi-final elimination will sate France, without a European title since 2000. Mbappe’s struggles have mirrored the team’s. Though we have become accustomed to France doing Just Enough to reach major finals under Didier Deschamps – three final appearances across the last four tournaments is outlandish stuff, really – they have been dreary and uninspired in Germany so far. Not that this bothers Deschamps, of course. When a Swedish journalist claimed at yesterday’s press conference that France’s football has been boring, Deschamps told him to “watch another game”.
He rightly did not deny that France have been boring, given they’ve yet to score a goal from open play across 480 minutes of action. But they’ve yet to concede one either.
This is arguably their strongest defensive line-up of Deschamps’ reign, with William Saliba a revelation and goalkeeper Mike Maignan a genuine contender for player of the tournament. (Which perhaps speaks to the tournament as much as Maignan.)
Their emergence is well timed, as the French attack has gone on strike. That’s partly down to Mbappe’s travails but primarily to Antoine Griezmann’s collapse in form. Deprived of Paul Pogba’s passing range, it was Griezmann who stepped in to elevate the team, excelling in a new midfield position at the Qatar World Cup.
This time around, though, Deschamps has tried to play him into form in a number of different positions: first in midfield, then on the right-wing and most recently as a number 10. Nothing has worked, and L’Equipe report that he will be dropped for tonight’s game, which is remarkable given Griezmann played 84 consecutive French games from 2017 to earlier this year.
That Griezmann has effectively been replaced in midfield by N’Golo Kante explains France’s attacking drop-off.
Spain, by contrast, have been the tournament’s best team. They are the joint-top scorers with Germany and have taken more shots than anyone else. Whether this team is a case of evolution or reversion is up to you, but the reality is that this team under Luis De La Fuente are playing more thrilling football than Luis Enrique’s tiki-taka ideologues. As Rodri explained in a brilliant pre-game interview with the Guardian, this Spain team are more “vertical.”
They release the ball much earlier to their electric young wingers, Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams, and are also happy to play direct to Alvaro Morata. But this willingness to surrender possession has a trade-off, witnessed in the retreat against Germany once they took a second-half lead. Earlier iterations of the Spanish team rarely had to bed in and defend for their lives, given they kept the ball regardless of what the scoreboard read.
As Rodri sums it up: Spain “play like a big team with the ball and a small team without it.”
Spain are showing some battle scars. They are without three starters from the win over Germany, with Pedri injured and defenders Robin Le Normand and Dani Carvajal suspended. Dani Olmo will slot in easily for Pedri, but losing the entire right of your defence ahead of facing even a struggling Mbappe is…sub-optimal.
As De La Fuente said yesterday, “Mbappe at 50% could be 100% for any other player.”
Carvajal’s loss at right-back will be Spain’s biggest problem, with Jesus Navas – the only last remaining link to the 2010 World Cup winners – one candidate to replace him. But ultimately the game will be won and lost in midfield. France will likely stock theirs with destroyers, so the question will be whether Rodri and Fabian Ruiz can pass their way through what vanishingly thin gaps they will be granted.
And though it may be perverse to say it given Spain are the top scorers, but can they convert what chances fall their way when it matters most? While they scored four times against an exhausted Georgia in the last-16, they had to rely on an own goal to beat Italy in a game they utterly dominated. Hence the semi-final may swing on whether Morata can take the chances that fall his way.
As captain, Morata has the total backing of his manager and team-mates, but he caused a pre-game stir by telling a Spanish newspaper that this is probably his final tournament with Spain, claiming fans in Spain show “no respect” toward him. Morata has been subjected to fans’ jeers and boos on and off over the last few years, but leading this Spain side to Berlin on Sunday might just be enough to stave off the whistles.
And if Morata needs any advice on what it’s like to battle on through pressure, he can ask the French captain tonight.
On TV: RTE Two and BBC; KO 8pm
