Urheilu’s expert Jonne Kunnas reviews how England managed to keep Mbappe at bay in the quarter-finals. France found its power through other routes and still advanced to the semi-finals.
A lot was expected from the World Cup quarter-final between France and England, and a lot was also received. France finally progressed with a 2–1 victory in a match tinged by England’s penalty kicks.
French superstar Kylian Mbappe has been perhaps the best player of the tournament. Against England, however, he remained calm and the performance that attracted the most attention was the youngster’s grimace, which was also interpreted as mischievous Harry Kane after failing in his second round.
England dropped out of the playoffs, but in one case the team succeeded Urheilu’s expert Jonne Kunnasen especially well. Mbappe remained in the dark.
The attached graphic has collected Mbappe’s personal statistics from three World Cup matches: the opening group game against Denmark, the quarter-final against Poland and the quarter-final against England. The opening group match against Australia has been left out of the comparison because the picture of the game was significantly different. Against Tunisia, Mbappe was not in the starting lineup.
Statistics show that England were able to keep Mbappe’s touches in the penalty area to a minimum, unlike Denmark and Poland. How did this work out?
– England managed to keep Mbappe off the ball significantly more than France’s previous opponents. The difference came especially in how much Mbappe was able to work with the ball in England’s box, says Kunnas.
According to Kunnas, England defended well especially France’s slower attacks. A big reason for the success of Mbappe’s eclipse was the Fullback by Kyle Walker role-playing. The video, which is the main image of the story, illustrates how Walker liked his placement in Mbappe’s reins.
– In England’s ball phase, Walker was practically positioned all the time in relation to Mbappe, and did not care to offer support or participate in moving the ball. Thus, when England lost the ball, Walker was immediately close to Mbappe to steal the ball, Kunnas illustrates.
Mbappe therefore remained in control, but at the same time England’s ball game, on the other hand, suffered according to Kunnas. England couldn’t find ways to pass the ball inside the formation and thus couldn’t take advantage of the big spaces left behind by Mbappe. The area highlighted in red in the video, which is the main image of the story, describes exactly these spaces. Kunnas sees that England played too cautiously with the ball.
– England’s fear overcame courage. On a few occasions, England were able to move the ball through Mbappe and by Theo Hernandez between when Bukayo Saka kept the width up and bound Hernandez, and Jordan Henderson moved to the wing lane to create superiority. This could have been a good route for England, but these were unnecessarily isolated moments, says Kunnas.
In the semi-final, Mbappe and France will face the big surprise of the World Cup, Morocco. The game will be very different to England, so the drugs to stop Mbappe will also be different. It remains to be seen how well Morocco will succeed in the task.
– Morocco defends tightly in a lower block than England. Mbappe will be closer to the box and more on the ball. The key is how Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele can be doubled and held with fewer balls, Kunnas predicts.
And Mbappe’s weaker game against England did not prevent France from completing the most important task, i.e. victory. The effects were found through other routes Aurelien Tchouamen and Olivier Giroud’s with goals.