Very fun to watch, and very interesting to see Di Stefano, Kubala, Suarez and Gento (what a team ) in action vs Kopa, Fontaine, Vincent, Jonquet etc. http://www.ina.fr/sport/football/video/CPF86630916/france-espagne.fr.html
Indeed... What I find interesting is to see Di Stefano's influence on the game : he's at the beginning of most Spanish offensives deep in midfield and also at the conclusion of them. That is not surprising of course but it is great to watch, and yet according to the French commentaries he doesn't seem to have played particularly well. Kubala and Suarez don't seem to have such an importance in the Spanish game-plan. In the French team Kopa has a similar role. Another interesting thing (and much more surprising to me) is Fontaine's style and positioning : he plays relatively deep as a left-inside and looks like being able to dribble, create and pass the ball (though not always with great success in that game). He's not the goal-puncher player a la Inzaghi most people think.
Is also my idea. Fontaine was not a JPP, to name another great French striker, type of player. That often happens with great goalscorers. Most people have also forgotten what a great footballers Eusebio, Van Basten and Müller (to a lesser extent, but still very usable in terms of build-up play and ball-retention and sometimes dropped deep too) were...
Very good find, and a nice addition to the Sweden v Brazil '58 Final and England vs Rest of World in '63 in terms of full length games I've viewed recently. I'm in the process of viewing the game but would agree that Di Stefano comes pretty deep often and even if not a great game for him he still displays some great touches and quick passes to team-mates. Suarez does seem to be playing from generally deeper than Kubala. Fontaine is also quite deep at times indeed, sometimes playing balls ahead to Kopa even. I think he is a player at his best in the final 3rd running onto through-balls but I can understand he wouldn't be the sort of player to wait up front on his own and hold up play etc all the time. The French number 8 is a skillful player (like a few of the less well-known players) but it would've been good to see Piantoni play this game too. I also have noticed that the likes of Gento and particularly Vincent (probably to an extent the right wingers too) do come infield rather than playing 99% on the wing. Vincent scores a nice goal from the inside right position. Looks like there is a France-Hungary game available as a link that I might have a look at.
I'll have a search through my posting history as it was being discussed and I think was linked on Big Soccer. I'll hopefully be able to point you in the right direction sometime today. The '58 Final is actually posted on Big Soccer but not on the Beautiful Game Forum, but I can definately find that one if anyone's interested.
Credit to burco and others who contributed on the other thread - yeah it's a good one to watch. I had a look for the Brazil-Sweden game again but looks like it's been taken down - the thread on Big Soccer has a blank video on now. There is this though, relating to France from 1958 - this is part 8 but I guess the other parts are all available (I haven't watched this one in full yet just maybe the first part or so, plus overall highlights of the game). Piantoni is involved in this one of course. It ought to be noted that Jonquet suffered an early injury and couldn't be replaced. Unfortunately the video quality isn't great and is without commentary but still might be a good one to watch too: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc6AsCwJl5s"]World Cup 1958 Full Game Semifinal Brazil vs France Part 8 - YouTube[/ame]
I guess babaorum you've either seen the full France-Brazil game before or you'd at least know the players and/or squad numbers but with the lack of commentary this might help others out (copied and pasted from Wikipedia): 1 Abbes 2 Colonna 3 Remetter 4 Kaelbel 5 Lerond 6 Marche 7 Mouynet 8 Chiarelli 9 Hnatow 10 Jonquet 11 Lafont 12 Marcel 13 Penverne 14 Bellot 15 Bruey 16 Douis 17 Fontaine 18 Kopa 19 Oliver 20 Piantoni 21 Vincent 22 Wisnieski Coach: Batteux The Brazilian squad numbers will be available too on Wikipedia of course, though perhaps they're more famous and/or distinct from each other (eg more easy to confuse Piantoni and Vincent rather than Didi and Zito perhaps). The France-Spain 1959 game was enhanced by commentary even for an English person whose French isn't good enough to follow and ditto actually the Sweden-Brazil game when it was available (I think the commentary was in Swedish if I recall correctly).