fellaini's barber
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- Nov 27, 2014
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All I'm saying is, I didn't see anything spectacularly good about this performance than what he's produced for us that's getting people to talk about him 'marturing' this tournament or expecting to see to see a different Pogba next season. I just hope he'll look better with the midfielders we bought but people thinking his performances for France this world cup has been so much better than some of his good performances for us and talking about how its us that make him shit are just seeing what they want to see.Let's pick apart the idea that he "lost the ball a lot", just briefly. He had the 2nd highest pass completion in the team, behind only Umtiti. They were the only two French starters with above an 80% completion rate. Mbappe and Griezmann in the 60s, Kante and Giroud in the 50s. So obviously France as a team struggled to keep the ball. Or alternatively they played an aggressive, risky game in possession safe in the knowledge that they could win the ball back in midfield and break.
And of course Pogba was an important part of that particular tactical plan, as he made more tackles than any other French player, more accurate long balls than any other French outfield player and just had more touches than any other French player. You picked up on the "few long balls", at least. But it's worth elaborating on that a bit too.
In the first half the only French chance from open play was when Pogba cut through the midfield and played in Mbappe, 2 vs 1 with Griezmann on the edge of the box. And then he played Mbappe through in the 2nd half twice - once when he went for goal himself and drew a good save from Subasic, and the other when Pogba finished off the chance himself. Until that point France had created no other chances in open play - they all started with Pogba.
And it's very obvious France were set up to play pragmatic counter-attacking football over fluid possession football since game 2. Game 1 they tried to play a fluid front three of Mbappe, Dembele and Griezmann and it sounded great - even Mourinho thought so. But it didn't work. So instead they relied upon a back four of four centre backs, a midfield with no wingers and a target man who couldn't hit the target.
And yet they won convincingly in every game if the knockout round, with Pogba's all round contribution playing a pivotal part in making it all work. That might suggest you're overlooking certain parts of the game that worked so successfully for France, that you just don't bother to recognise.