Didier Deschamps’ men defeated (2-1, doubled by the Parisian striker) the other favorite of their group, this Saturday, during the second day of the group stage. They are already qualified for the round of 16.
The day had started well for the Habs: the Australian Socceroos, beaten Tuesday, November 22 by the Blues (4-1) for their entry into the competition and who suddenly passed for victims, had returned the Tunisian selection (1-0) and gave a retrospective luster to the Blues’ initial victory, in review against Christian Eriksen & co a few hours later.
This Saturday, in a fascinating 974 stadium in Doha, built like a gigantic stack of containers that one imagines soon leaving for god knows where, the Blues beat (2-1) Denmark on the wire and will play the eighth of final regardless of their last result Wednesday, November 30 against the Tunisians. No team had won its first two meetings so far: a World Cup full of fury and storms, but the Kylian Mbappé (scorer of the two goals) & co did have their feet dry.
Bastingage
The Blues started with their vice-captain Raphaël Varane, returning from injury and that we were not going to put in cotton indefinitely either: it makes or breaks, sport is like that. Which Varane was not far from giving the advantage to the Blues by taking a corner (13th), a Danish defender saving on his line. Some jokes from Ousmane Dembélé on his right side and two accelerations from Mbappé (20th and 30th), anticipated by the public who growl as soon as the Parisian star takes the ball with the field in front of him, installed the idea of a dangerousness superior tricolor.
But here it is: the Danish coach, Kasper Hjulmand, has a team with well-established passing circuits, capable of ensuring a certain technical mastery, with fast defenders with a considerable physical response and, if a lot has to be done to put them on the recoil, it takes even more to get them over the rail. 0-0 with lemons, the key word is patience, its corollary caution.
Mbappé’s superego
The second half will have resumed on the same mode, with openings a bit clearer, perhaps because the Nordiques raise their line of pressing a notch, which opens up opportunities behind their backs. A game of chess all the same, and it’s always the same one who made the chessboard and the pieces waltz: Mbappé at the start to drill with a jackhammer in the Danish defense, Mbappé in the middle to alert Théo Hernandez on the left side, Mbappé on the arrival of a short center from the Milanese and oust! The Blues in command (1-0, 61st).
The Danish players were then angry and we confess to having witnessed from the stands a strange, unexpected sequence, which should haunt the nights of the coach of the Blues, Didier Deschamps, and those who assist him: Tricolores completely erased from the table during five minutes. We know the trick, a team that revolves around the opener is never as fragile as when it opens the score. Something relaxes. As experienced as they are, the Blues have gone through it big: two duels lost on the same corner and Andreas Christensen who puts the Danes back up (1-1, 68th).
The end of the match will have been slack, balanced, but Mbappé does not play on both sides: the tricolor striker, at the extreme limit of offside, went to pick up a cross from Antoine Griezmann to truck the ball deep into the goals from Kasper Schmeichel, the son of (2-1, 86th). The impression remains that he went looking for this one with everything, except his technical qualities: rage, will, superego, that sort of thing. The Blues sail on his wings.