UEFA Nations League 2018-19, Netherlands 2-0 France: 5 takeaways from the match

#3 The fearsome French attack not so frightening

While it is true that the Dutch defense was at their very best, they had nothing much to do after the first half. The first half saw France attacking on the counter, but there was none of that in the second.

They only had 2 shots on target the whole night, and there were only 7 attempts made overall, 4 of those came off set-pieces.

This was an issue that stayed hidden during the World Cup campaign, but it always persisted. Mbappe can always run at defenses, but when he came up against Van Dijk, he was silenced just like in the UEFA Champions League match against Liverpool.

France did score four goals past Argentina, but Argentina was a disorganised team with no real threat. Their players were very slow and couldn't stop any sort of counter-attack. Other than the Argentina game, France scored 4 in the finals. How? One penalty and two long shots.

Even then they didn't have the creativity to open up the defense. The long shots beat a blinded Subasic. They trusted the set-piece against Belgium, and against Uruguay as well. This is by no means to undermine their World Cup campaign, this is just a look into the fact that their attack is not at all a ruthless one.

The game against The Netherlands was just another instance which showcased the fact. France is not at all organised in attack, and Deschamps is not an attacking coach as well. This issue persisted all along the World Cup from the group stage to the final, and even till now.

Deschamps has to fix the issue as soon as possible, because not all defenses will let Mbappe run riot. The defenses which are good and can track back quickly will put a stop to the counter, so they need new ways of scoring, other than set-pieces and Mbappe's pace.