SAINT-DENIS, France — France cruised to a 4-0 win over the Netherlands in front of more than 75,000 joyous fans at the Stade de France on Friday.
Here are three thoughts on the Euro 2024 qualifying action from Paris:
Kylian Mbappé is worthy of the armband
There are no words that can describe the genius that oozes out of the PSG winger’s boots.
Didier Deschamps appointed Mbappé as captain at just 24 years of age and asked him to be “a unifier” between the France of yesterday and the France of tomorrow. He needed someone to fill the massive shoes of goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who held the position for 14 years, and lead Les Bleus to the top of the world once more.
Mbappé is well on his way to do more than that — he can become the best player in the world.
His first goal as a French international came against the Netherlands at the Stade de France almost six years ago, and he continued his dominance over the Dutch in a man-of-the-match performance Friday night. In the 21st minute, Aurélien Tchouameni slotted a perfectly-weighted through ball to Randal Kolo Muani. Instead of taking it himself, the Eintracht Frankfurt frontman executed a picturesque dummy to set Mbappé up for his first goal.
In the 88th minute, Mbappé collected the ball on the left wing and darted across the pitch toward goal. A fake shot sent Daley Blind hopelessly sliding five yards the wrong way and created the half yard of space Mbappé needed to slide his second goal past Cillessen.
Every Dutch defender tried and failed to stop Mbappé from making his mark on this game. And these aren’t average defenders, either. Virgil Van Dijk plays for Liverpool and Nathan Aké suits up for Manchester City. If Mbappé can make players of that quality look useless, who knows what he’ll do to the less-experienced backlines of the other three teams (Republic of Ireland, Gibraltar and Greece) in this group.
France is only getting deeper
Despite making four changes to their final squad of the World Cup, there was no drop-off in the quality of Didier Deschamps’s men.
Mike Maignan was rock-solid in goal and came up with a massive double-save to deny Memphis Depay a consolation goal at the end of stoppage time. Ibrahima Konaté completed 44 of his 50 passes and rarely put a foot wrong alongside Dayot Upamecano. Randal Kolo Muani should have had a goal (or two) and was relentless in his quest for shots. Even Kingsley Coman, the preferred replacement for the injured Ousmane Dembélé, offered opportunities for link-up play when he drifted inside to isolate the Dutch outside-backs.
Olivier Giroud has scored more goals than anyone in France’s history and had to come off the bench. Eduardo Camavinga (a center midfielder at heart) was named as a left-back for this international break because there are six other players that fall ahead of him in Deschamps’s pecking order. Benjamin Pavard has 47 caps in his career, starts for Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich and couldn’t even get into this game.
Center-back Benoît Badiashile starts for Chelsea but has to play with France’s U-21 team because he too faces an abundance of depth at his position.. Don’t forget that Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kante and Lucas Hernández are still recovering from their own pre-World Cup injuries. Wesley Fofana and William Saliba had to leave this camp with their own knocks too.
If everyone is healthy, this France squad has a serious claim to the title of best in history.
Injuries hurt the Netherlands
In his first stint as head coach of the Netherlands, Koeman never lost by more than a goal.
His Oranje side conceded three inside of 21 minutes tonight and ended on the wrong side of a four-nil thrashing.
In the Dutch gaffer’s defense, he was missing a good chunk of his talented core. Andries Noppert, Frenkie de Jong and Teun Koopmeiners were out with injuries. Cody Gakpo was one of five players that succumbed to a stomach virus and had to leave the Dutch camp early. Denzel Dumfries was suspended after receiving a red card in the aftermath of the penalty shootout loss to Argentina in the World Cup quarterfinals.
Koeman’s choice of replacements didn’t exactly meet the moment. Jasper Cillessen christened his return to the national team by butchering a simple cross to gift Dayot Upamecano his second-ever international goal. Despite his game-winning header against Ajax in De Klassieker over the weekend, Feyenoord’s Lutsharel Geertruida was a deer in headlights and was unable to stop a single French player from getting in behind the Dutch backline. Xavi Simons came nowhere close to threatening the opposition like Gakpo and looked uncomfortable until switching into the midfield as a 10.
Kenneth Taylor had the most forgettable performance of the lot. The 20-year-old Ajax midfielder gave the ball away twice in the first two minutes and was directly at fault for France’s opening goal. His inability to find open space and offer a positive passing lane to either of his center-backs prevented the Netherlands from doing anything more than aimlessly switching the play from side to side. When he did get on the ball, he either gave it away with an errant pass or was dispossessed in the middle of the pitch.
Koeman’s substitutions were a lone bright spot and injected a much-needed spark into a sputtering Dutch engine. Daley Blind earned his 100th cap for the Netherlands and looked much more confident in his pass selection than his compatriots. Borussia Dortmund’s Donyell Malen was particularly adept at finding the space that Theo Hernández left vacant on the right flank, but he wasn’t given nearly enough time to make the AC Milan defender pay for it.
The Netherlands have a long way to go before they run out of options, but there needs to be a massive overhaul from Koeman if they want a result when they host Gibraltar in Rotterdam on Monday.
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