Foot & Soccer Soccer Match Reports, Football News
July 5 – Billed as Cristiano Ronaldo against Kylian Mbappé, tonight’s Portugal vs France Euro 2024 quarter final has shades of the Mbappé vs Lionel Messi 2022 World Cup final in Qatar.
It is the match-up of one of the biggest superstars (some would argue the biggest) the game has ever seen, against the heir apparent. When individual records are compared no-one will be able to say that the remarkable Mbappé was never pitched in a head-to-head duel with football’s greatest, even if it was at the close of their careers rather than the opening.
This Euros both Ronaldo and Mbappé share a commonality – they are both finding it hard to hit the back of the net, but have both scored from the spot.
While the French and Portugal games have lacked goalscoring fizz, there is no doubt that these are two world class teams with world class talent throughout their squads. This will not be like a group game where you sit around for long periods watching and waiting for the clearly superior team to score a goal.
Both teams like the ball at their feet and while they may not have scored goals in free-flowing abundance, they have created multiple chances against opposition who generally have showed little ambition.
The hope is that this quarter final will ignite early with two teams showing why they are among the best in the world.
France manager Didier Deschamps has seemed unconcerned by the French inability to score goals – they have just three to their name, two of them own-goals and one from the penalty spot.
He exudes the belief that there is almost an inevitability that goals will soon flow and that, probably, Mbappé will be leading the way.
“We’ve got the quality and talent, but there are a lot of teams that have that. At the highest level, there’s a need to be solid and work hard together. Everyone is progressing, and there’s a common denominator between all these matches: the athletic intensity being at the very highest level,” said…
Source link : https://www.insideworldfootball.com/2024/07/05/mbappe-vs-ronaldo-france-vs-portugal-euros-braced-big-night-hamburg/
Author : Paul Nicholson
Publish date : 2024-07-05 09:59:27
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