Al Thumama Here they are the best World Cup team with the best World Cup players and the best World Cup chances to play the best football in the World Cup.
When will France show that?
we will see. Maybe soon. If they feel like it.
Today I feel like a miner.
The stands at the majestic Al Thumama Stadium are half full like the moon above them as France slowly falter in their warm-up period. The last thing that happened is that Youssouf Fofana and Mathieu Guendouzi, the backup midfielders, decided, like two young players, to compete.
Check out the bar now!
The ball is 35 meters from the goal. Guendouzi First: Accurately against the crossbar. Fofana two seconds later: Klong.
And one, two and three stars Les Bleus are in the Middle East to claim their third star, and that’s how they appear. Like everything is so simple. The WC Cup’s tactical direction – or goes further back – is that play on the wing and the individual qualities that are there define matches. France has Ousmane Dembele on one side and Kylian Mbappe on the other. They have Antoine Griezmann in them, the Giro penalty box ship in front of them. How do you stop it? With Matty Cash and Berezinski as full backs?!
Now it’s Poland’s turn to try, and it’s the swoon-worthy, passive Poland that beat Sweden that’s dedicated to standing up for itself here and saying a prayer that Robert Lewandowski solves the rest. When Poland’s captain Czeslaw Miczinevic was formulating his goal for the World Cup, he talked about the day. Poland will stay in the WC more BarbaraSt. Barbara’s Day, which is celebrated in memory of those who die an untimely death. Or more specifically: for miners.
The mines were dug again
So let me tell you about Poland and France and the mines.
At the beginning of November, they are invited to a competition in a shopping center in Lens, in the north of France. The city’s Polish diaspora has baked and cooked, fixed and donated, and now the jury will choose the best Polish dessert from ten choices.
Referees were brought in from the city’s pride, Racing Club de Lens contributed three Polish football professionals, and for Przemyslaw Frankowski the selection was simple:
– Everything we tasted reminded me of my childhood, my Polish identity. I prefer? Bachkin (a kind of fried donut with plum jam)!
In Nord-Pas-de-Calais, of which Lens is the capital, there is a huge Polish diaspora. After World War I, France needed labor, and two hundred thousand Poles arrived. They got off the mine, some never came, others stayed. Today, half a million Poles live in the area. One in eight residents has red-white blood.
In the past, there were stars who worked in the mine during the day and played football for Racing on the weekends. In the 1920s a special Polish Football Association was formed in Lens, with the aim of organizing all newly formed Polish immigrant clubs.
One of the mining families that moved to Pas-de-Calais was called Kopaszewski, and had a grandson named Raymond. Growing up in occupied northern France, he recounted how he wrestled a soccer ball from Nazi soldiers. As he got older, he became known as Raymond Kopa, and became France’s first football star, and first Ballon d’Or winner. The strongest football culture in all of France emanates from the port of Marseille and from the mines of Saint-Etienne and Lens.
Now the mines have been dug again in the north, and the Polish mines have no future. But Poland will face France in the round of 16, and Przemyslaw Frankowski has been there from the start.
How on earth were they going to get through that?
Michinewicz’s team has been praised for its defensive play, but I don’t know how good it was. Chesney was the best goalkeeper in the World Cup, because he should have been. Against France, they put a lot of effort into a low 4-5-1, doing everything right, with faithful, powerful transitions and double or triple guarding for Mbappe, who was the overblown focal point of the French attacking game.
France? a job?
Sometimes I wonder how he stands?
Well, they saved that for later. Griezmann was the only one who moved the ball with a volley, and only Rabiot who showed any kind of interest in simultaneous pressure play. Watch when they defend themselves, how they look for an offensive opportunity in every situation; A break that can lead to a counterattack, a forward pass in the next moment. This is a team of artists for a people of artists. Dembele has a cat phobia, Rabiot has an annoying mother, and Kiki Mbappe’s father comments on the World Cup on African television. Jules Koundé played the entire first half with a gold chain hanging around his neck. And Hugo Lloris (France’s most international player since today) wasted balls just to have something to save.
Sometimes I wonder how Didier Deschamps, with his cigarettes and his background, is coping with this team. How do players handle it?
Poland eliminates Barbórka toiling, defending, missing a hat-trick (provided by Lloris) and waiting for the ball under Kamil Glik’s right foot.
They don’t get overpowered, they do their job well, but when Mbappe finally finds a stab in the box for Giroud (France’s top scorer since today) to beat 1-0 just before half-time, it’s a cat – sorry, Dembélé – who puts his paw on the rat’s tail just a little bit.
You could see Michinewicz for his risk-minimizing football, because Milik and Piatek are two players on the bench, but maybe not tonight. They stayed in the game for 75 minutes, started taking risks, and you could hear it red white poland –Cheers from the stands – Mbappe even finished off a counter-attack by slamming it 2-0 into the roof of the net.
Mbappe is not only here as the heir apparent to Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, he is here as a fitting image of the entire French squad. He is so superior, with so many talents, that he need not concern himself with trifles such as interpreting the game or evaluating his own situations. He sent a 3-0 into the same net at the end, just in case, before Lewandowski was awarded two penalties to console himself (he scored one goal).
Kylian Mbappe is really the best. One day, when he feels like it, he’ll show how stratospherically good he can be.
Maybe soon. If he feels so.
