EURO 2024: Collapse because of a name

There were many emotions that suddenly came to the hearts of those watching the EURO 2024 semi-final between France and Spain.

There was relief from the neutral fans, as they saw a team that was considered a candidate for the EURO championship playing like that, it was best never to dream of playing in the final. There was regret from the fans of the blue team because a journey did not end as expected.

Mbappe (10) is stuck in a circle of Spanish players

Reuters

But there was also frustration and a fair amount of criticism. How could a team full of stars, despite reaching the semi-finals, play such poor quality football? But the biggest disappointment surrounded one name, Mbappe. Since winning the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the French national team has become his hostage in both positive and negative ways. No one can deny how good he was at the 2022 World Cup when he was the best scorer and only surrendered with France to Argentina on penalties, but he was also the one who put the French national team on the ropes at EURO 2020, when he played poorly and was eliminated with France by Switzerland in the quarter-finals in a penalty shootout in which he was the only one to miss; At EURO 2024, with the captain's armband that people said he stole from Griezmann, he played even worse, scoring only 1 goal from the penalty spot, creating an opportunity for Kolo Muani to score the opening goal against Spain, the rest was a big zero. His poor form was one of the reasons why France played so poorly in this tournament and deserved to be eliminated.

Sadness named Mbappe

There is no denying that France's fate revolved around him and he betrayed them, just as Brazil built their squad and philosophy around Neymar and Mbappe's former PSG team-mate never quite repaid the patience and love of their fans. Mbappe, too, has failed to deliver what many of his teammates expected of him as a leader. At this EURO, he tied his fate and the team's to a broken nose and then, when things didn't look good because his form was still poor, Deschamps told everyone on his behalf that he felt uncomfortable wearing a mask and sweating, as if no one in the world had ever played with a mask on. "Mbappe didn't play like he used to," Deschamps explained about him in the post-match press conference. But he himself had to explain why the entire French attack was so paralyzed in this tournament, why a team with so many stars, considered a candidate in the tournament, produced such emotionless football and was stuck in the instability of a captain named Mbappe. This whole tournament was a disaster for the French attack, not just Mbappe. Kolo Muani was the only one who was not criticized because he had a hand in two goals against Belgium and Spain, but Thuram certainly deserved the anger of the fans, Giroud was more sympathetic because he also played his last matches for the team at the age of 37, Dembele was never a player who could finish to score goals in the right sense, Griezmann was in a terrible form, and Mbappe deserved to be bombarded with criticism. Deschamps’s inability to play in attack is evident in the fact that he has used six different attacking lines in the six matches of the tournament. If an era of the Blues ends with Giroud, the only survivor from Deschamps’ first France squad 12 years ago, it also raises questions about Griezmann’s existence and the building of a style of play around Mbappe. The masked captain of France is also a symbol of France at this EURO, as their forwards also seem to wear masks while playing.

Thanhnien.vn

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/euro-2024-sup-do-vi-mot-cai-ten-185240710231128354.htm