Morning all.
So Spain are through to the final of Euro 2024 last night after a 2-1 win over France. A rare moment of quality from Kylian Mbappe saw him cross for Kolo Muani to head Didier Deschamps’ side in front, but Spain equalised via an incredible Lamine Yamal strike.
The 16 year old picked the ball up outside the box, sent Adrian Rabiot to the cleaners with a wiggle of his hips. and curled a perfect shot beyond everyone, going into the net via a very satisfying crack off the post. Watch it here. Then watch it again, it was that good. What an insane talent this young man is, and let’s not forget we’ve seen a 16 year-old Catalan wonderkid ourselves.
Dani Olmo made it 2-1 a few minutes later, showing good skill inside the box to fire home via the feet of Jules Kounde who couldn’t do enough to keep it out. Speaking of not doing enough: France. Throughout this tournament their football has been missing the kind of energy and end-product you would expect from them. Last night was another one of those games where the final ball was never really good enough, the decision making poor, and too many players stood around waiting for someone to do something rather than be more aggressive/proactive in the final third.
Nevertheless, they had chances. Dayot Upamecano produced a very poor header 6 yards out when he should have hit the target, Theo Hernandez fired a shot over, and Mbappe – when he did finally create some space for himself – blasted miles over when the finish he needed required more precision than power. It has been a tournament to forget for him, although it can’t have been easy to shoulder the attacking burden in a side too closely aligned to Deschamps’ conservatism, not to mention the injury he sustained too. Spain managed the final stages of the game well, as you would expect, and deservedly went through in my opinion.
It obviously means William Saliba’s tournament is over, and he can now go take a break, enjoy some downtime, and return…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/07/euro-2024-spain-make-the-final-as-france-underwhelm-again/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-07-10 06:12:23
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