1. Lukaku and Giroud failed to make an impact:<\/b><\/p>\n
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As much as Lukaku tried, he just couldn\u2019t find a way to make his presence felt. He was unable to find his way into the game and he would definitely have wished for a more dominating performance.\u00a0Having almost two-thirds of the possession in this match (64%) didn\u2019t help the Belgians in front of goal either, with star striker Romelu Lukaku only touching the ball once in the first 20 minutes of the game.<\/p>\n
While the likes of Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe were putting a show in the final third, another French forward isn\u2019t having as much luck.<\/p>\n
Olivier Giroud has now played over seven hours of football at the 2018 World Cup without managing a single shot on target.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s 425 minutes of continuous football without troubling the opposition keeper.<\/p>\n
Both Romelu Lukaku and Olivier Giroud have had \u2013 and continue to have \u2013 their detractors. Their style is not too dissimilar; two physical focal points who don\u2019t get nearly enough credit for their technical quality, with an ability to bring team-mates into play, sniff out chances in the penalty area and conjure the occasional spectacular goal\u00a0from dust.<\/p>\n
This seemed like an apt moment to compare the two. Both had chances they might have taken, reacting a little too slowly, or taking one touch too many, or one touch too badly. Both looked, on the surface at least, like they weren\u2019t always on the same wavelength as their chief co-conspirators,\u00a0Mbappe and Eden Hazard.\u00a0And in the end, there was little to separate the pair from a near performance \u2013\u00a0except that one will get the chance to play in a World Cup final, and one will not.<\/p>\n
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2.Matuidi : The midfield work-horse with iron lungs:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Even as France banished ghosts of 2010 in Brazil and fell at the final hurdle to Portugal in Euro 2016, all the midfield talking points were about Paul Pogba, or why N\u2019Golo Kante didn\u2019t play every game.<\/p>\n There were even calls before the tournament to ask why he was even part of Deschamps\u2019 23-man squad.<\/p>\n The 31-year-old has become the Moussa Sissoko of the current team. His inclusion questioned, but Deschamps\u2019 loyalty remains and most importantly, when called upon, he never lets his country down.<\/p>\n Before he was taken off on the 86th-minute, he won all six of his tackles, made three interceptions and won four fouls.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t know what you\u2019ve got till it\u2019s gone and France certainly missed him against Uruguay. They will hope he\u2019s 100 per cent going into the final.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kylian Mbappe tormented the Belgian defence with his jinking runs from out wide, looking like a seasoned professional at just 19 years of age.<\/p>\n The odds for the Golden Ball show a bunch of fresh faces, with Kylian Mbappe now leading the charge. When Portugal and then Argentina exited the tournament it felt like a changing of the guard, and today\u2019s announcement that Cristiano Ronaldo has left Real Madrid only added to the feeling that there is a black hole where\u00a0superstars used to shine.<\/p>\n Lightning quick speed, superb close control and a confidence rarely seen in someone so young. If Argentina was his coming out party, the semi-final was the boy transforming into a man.<\/p>\n When other players around him would pick the wrong pass, or hold on to the ball too long, the teenager would charge up the field, keep his head and choose the right option more often than not.<\/p>\n He finished the game without a shot on goal, but he completed 22 of his 28 pass attempts, created six chances and was successful with seven out of his 15 take-ons.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4. France continues to score from set-pieces:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n How many times haven\u2019t we seen teams score from set pieces in this world cup? This world cup has brought back the long forgotten strategy of winning via set-piece efficiency.<\/p>\n Umtiti\u2019s was another, rising to glance Antoine Griezmann\u2019s in-swinger past Thibaut Courtois, yet another tick\u00a0in the column for hard work on the training pitch.<\/p>\n Perhaps that goes against our natural instinct that football\u2019s enjoyment should come\u00a0from its moments of inspiration and innovation, like a volley which unravels from the corner of your eye or a pass which\u00a0dissects a perfectly assembled defence. Perhaps this tournament has proved that\u00a0goals, any goals, and the drama and the narrative they write can be more entertaining and absorbing than the sheer one-off pleasure of a wonder strike.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5. Roberto Martinez was tactically good but it wasn’t his night:<\/strong><\/p>\n Belgium had scored 14 goals in five matches and was hugely impressive in their 2-1 quarterfinal victory over Brazil, but had their backs against the wall against a tough French outfit.<\/p>\n When the Belgium team was announced, there were questions around the official line-up, suggesting Mousa Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 would play right wing-back and it start 3-4-3. Roberto Martinez\u2019s tactical change [3-5-2] was to cope with France\u2019s domineering midfielders. It was a great move to prevent the French from gaining total midfield control<\/p>\n Many suggested it would instead be 4-3-3 and the truth was somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n Without the ball, Belgium set up playing 4-2-3-1, with Kevin De Bruyne on the right, Fellaini as the No.10 and Nacer Chadli at right-back.<\/p>\n Then when they had possession, it changed to 3-4-3, with Chadli allowed to push up as an attacker, Hazard going left and De Bruyne at the tip of the midfield.<\/p>\n After going a goal down, Martinez brought on Dries Mertens and Yannick Carrasco for Moussa Dembele and Marouane Fellaini. The idea was clear. The French were defending in their numbers which meant that the Belgians needed more men upfront as well as width.<\/p>\n As they lost, it\u2019s hard to say Belgium got it right, but you can\u2019t put the blame on their Spanish coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" France earned their place in the World Cup final with a 1-0 over their neighbours Belgium on an edgy night in St Petersburg. Samuel Umtiti\u2019s glancing header early in the second half put the French ahead and from there Didier Deschamps\u2019 team dug in to deny Belgium any clear-cut opportunities. France will play England or Croatia in Moscow on Sunday for the right to be crowned World Champions.\u00a0Here are five things we learned: 1. Lukaku and Giroud failed to make an impact: As much as Lukaku tried, he just couldn\u2019t find a way to make his presence felt. He was unable to find his way into the game and he … Continue reading “World Cup 2018 Semi Final France 1-0 Belgium: 5 Things we learned”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1202,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[402,482,497,499,485,441,491,472,470,468,483,494,493,498,495,492,466,318,496,486],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-belgium","tag-courtois-alderweireld","tag-dembele-de-bruyne","tag-e-hazard","tag-fellaini","tag-france","tag-france-vs-belgium","tag-giroud","tag-griezmann","tag-kante","tag-kompany","tag-l-hernandez-pogba","tag-lloris-pavard","tag-lukaku","tag-matuidi-mbappe","tag-semi-final-world-cup","tag-umtiti","tag-varane","tag-vertonghen-chadli","tag-witsel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2018\/07\/DhxYrwVWkAAoIRJ-730x400.jpg\")
\nThe Juventus midfielder has gone his whole career is an underrated part of his team.At Paris Saint-Germain, Blaise Matuidi was the hardest working player on the pitch, but the spotlight was shone elsewhere.<\/p>\n3. Mbappe continues to rise and shine<\/h3>\n
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