I agree... France is too good on all levels. No team can compete with them this cup. Although, I think if Belgium was on the other side of the bracket, we would have seen a France v Belgium final.
You're right about the shots (damn it!) but Belgium still dominated possession 60-40. In fact, more than Brazil did. The point is, teams that are ahead (especially by two goals), drop back and yield possession to the trailing team. There was nothing unusual (or lucky) about how Belgium played Brazil. It was just sound tactics.
Even if Mbappe dived in one incident, there is no clear pattern to him doing so overall. Besides, I can stomach divers a lot more than hackers and cheats. Uruguay, while comparatively clean-cut by their standards this time around, used to be world champions on all 3 counts: diving, hacking and cheating! Colombia has taken over from them, and Neymar (who I don't mind despite his dives) is still the player who you know will be diving in every game. All that said, I still would have liked a Brazil-England final. But certainly France, in no small measure because of Mbappe, can be even more exciting and deserving in many ways.
All true, but someone forgot to tell that to Japan! Once Japan was up 2:0, they showed have parked the bus and defended like crazy. I think they could have survived and made it past Belgium.
I was thinking that too. With Ronaldo moving to Juventus, time for a new, fresh, and even more exciting face to represent Real Madrid. And no one fits that bill as well as Mbappe.
Except for the conceding 9 shots on goal that required Courtois to have a record-tying performance. Surrendering so many opportunities that result in real danger isn't being defensive, or at least it doesn't qualify as being effectively defensive. in any event, this notion that Belgium "outplayed" Brazil was total nonsense. (and are you really distinguishing between a 60-40 split and a 59-41 split? . )
Somehow the French play a really shitty football. That's not attractive. But they did what Belgium does not like. They gave Belgium the ball. They only defended. Belgium had the ball all the time. No movement without the ball of the other players. Static. No Belgian knew what he should do. If Belgium has the place and can counter, the Belgians are one of the best teams in the world. The French did not allow that. Not very attractive, but successful.
definitely. I'd love to see more yellows for simulation and generally more for PI. I came into it thinking that if it wasn't going to be Brazil, France is an exciting, talented side with a lot of fantastic young talent. I've been thinking they were going to be terrifying all year, and they haven't disappointed.
-Hazard was the best player of the World Cup (that foul not called on him on the tip of the area, dear god...). He deserved to be playing in the WC final. -De Bruyne was a let down. -The ref today was a joke on the 2nd half, every 50-50 challenge went on France favour, and of the 6 minutes added there was 1-2 actually played. -France are a quality side, they deserve to be on the final and are favourites to win it.
Possession without shots is pretty meaningless and shots without shots on goal is almost as meaningless. But regardless of stats France "outplayed" Belgium as they were consistently more organized and seemed more aware as a team what was going on all over the field. I actually think that if both teams had chosen to open up the game France still wins something like 4-2 or 3-1 but they understood there was danger in being too open with the finishers that were on the field and they chose to keep the play tight and controlled. France was the better team on this day and the better team won pretty much exactly as they planed. As others have said I expect France to win against whichever team comes out of the match tomorrow but I expect that winner will be England so I think we are looking forward to a probable final of France vs England which France will win. I enjoyed today's match. It was quite tactical with talented players working together to produce the final product on the field. France's final product was just a little better than Belgium's.
Totally forgettable game. Should have been a goal fest. Poor finishing. Last 20 minutes were actually quiet boring. Belgium kept trying the same cross+header pattern all through out the match, nothing creative. In comparison, Brazil was doing so much in QF that match was interesting till the last minute. Not this.
57-43 according to FIFA. Not to mention Belgium had a two goal lead up until the 75th minute, something France never had. https://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/match/300331538/#motm
If I haven't watched a game, and had to find some indication of how it went, I might look at stats for that purpose. But once you watch a game, no stat can tell you something different than what you saw! After the 30th minute mark, France was the better team compared to Belgium until the end of the match. The first 30 minutes, however, went mostly to Belgium. Brazil did well to put a lot of pressure on Belgium in the 2nd half and might have deserved to find an equalizer from all their effort. But the most you could say is that they might have deserved to equalize and take that game to overtime.
Holy cow! I just realize France REALLY doesn't travel well. Since 1990, France has either not qualified or failed in the group stage in every world cup outside of Europe and made the FINAL in all three held in Europe! creeeeeepy, man!
Come on now,taking a fall for a foul ,now and then is part of the game,making it part of your overall personal game a la Neymar ,is totally different.
True taht. Surrendering the goal made Belgium actually play, which was nice. My only point is that if you are surrendering 9 shots on goal and relying on 8 saves, you have kind of lost any claim to having done a good job defensively.
Except of course that Neymar gets actually fouled way more than Mbappe. If Mbappe gets hacked as much as Neymar does, he will start to take some action as well
Belgium doesn't have a good defense. I have no doubt about that. Not only the stats bear me out on it given that they have allowed a good number of goals in this tournament, they have also allowed almost all teams facing them plenty of chances. Even Tunisia scored 2 and had 2-3 other chances to score as well. Belgium's true quality is in the trio of Hazard, Lukaka (controlled well in this match) and KDB and how they do upfront. The rest seem quite overrated to me.
Here is the real truth, none of these teams are head and shoulders above each other. Belgium, France, Brazil were roughly on the same level and either one of those 3 could have made the final. I think what may have hurt Brazil a little were some of the injuries and missing Casemiro. Belgium and France looked pretty 100% physically. I would have put Croatia in there too but I am not impressed by them in the KO rounds so far. Still a very solid side. I'd rank England lower but anything can happen at this point.