In World Cup Qualifying, Group A leaders France took on the Netherlands on Thursday night, with the Dutch looking to make up ground on their opponents in order to avoid another disappointing failure to qualify for a major international tournament.

France’s strong pressing scheme…

Despite dominating possession, perhaps the most interesting aspect of France’s game was their pressing and the way in which they were able to dictate the spaces in which Holland could play.

When the Dutch centre- backs had the ball, the two strikers in the French 4-4-2 would stand in front of the double pivot of Wijnaldum and Strootman in order to block passing lanes to them. From here, the Dutch centre-backs would usually move the ball out to one of the full-backs. The strikers would shift accordingly to keep Wijnaldum and Strootman in their cover shadow.

The behaviour of France’s wingers, Coman and Lemar, was key. They started fairly narrow, but when moving to press the Netherlands’ full-backs, they would curve their run wider so that their cover-shadow prevented the pass down the line to the Dutch winger. This forced the Netherlands’ full-backs to either pass back to the centre-backs, or a risky pass inside to one of their central midfielders looking to move on the blindside of Giroud and Griezmann.

Also key to the success of this pressing scheme was ensuring good intensity in ball-oriented shifting from the other midfielders, particularly Pogba and Kante, so that when the ball was passed inside, they were close enough to immediately get access, which, along with the backward pressing of Griezmann and Giroud, made a very difficult situation for which the Netherlands could not find a solution.

…aided by terrible possession play by the Netherlands

It wasn’t just the strong pressing of the French that prevented the Dutch from creating anything in their possession phase (the Netherlands mustered only one shot in the first half), they also created their own problems.

Firstly, the double-pivot of Wijnaldum and Strootman simply lacked movement to try and escape the cover shadows of Giroud and Griezmann. They were fairly static, which made it easy for the French pair to keep them from receiving the ball, as well as allowing them to move forward to press the Dutch centre-backs.

Even on the occasions where Netherlands were able to bypass the French strikers centrally, Pogba or Kante reacted quickly in order to pressure their opponent from the blindside and prevent them from progressing. The French central midfield duo were, in general, quite impressive against the ball. Aside from the aforementioned ball-oriented shifting, they showed good coordination, ensuring that if one moved forward to press, the other would cover the space. They were adaptable, acting loosely man-oriented when players moved into their zones, or in other situations they could drop deep and secure the space in front of the defence, turning the defensive structure into more of a 4-2-2-2.

For the Netherlands, having one central midfielder drop to the side of, or in between the centre-backs might’ve at least given them an overload on the first line. Alternatively, simply shifting the double pivot to the left or right slightly, so that they were not directly in the same vertical line as each centre-back may have created some interesting possibilities, perhaps opening lanes for longer passes, or affecting the positioning of the French strikers so that a centre-back had space to move forward into.

France flexible in possession

From a base formation of 4-2-3-1, a couple of interesting structures could emerge for France in possession, each with different effects on the man-oriented defending of the Netherlands, and each created in no small part by the dynamic Thomas Lemar.

The Monaco midfielder was mostly active in the left halfspace, creating space on the wing for Kurzawa to push forward aggressively. If Lemar chose to remain higher alongside Griezmann, a 3-2-4-1 structure could sometimes emerge, with Kante and Pogba in front of the defence, and Sidibe being more reserved than his left sided counterpart Kurzawa. If Lemar dropped deeper, Kante moved more central, and Pogba more to the right, creating 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-3 permutations for France.

The Netherlands, in their man-oriented 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 against the ball, found the 3-2-4-1 structure easier to deal with for the most part, as they naturally had decent access to France’s midfield. Janssen, and the #10 Sneijder, could orient themselves towards Pogba and Kante in their deeper roles, while Wijnaldum and Strootman could usually handle Lemar and Griezmann.

They struggled more with France’s 4-3-1-2 type structures however. Although both shapes gave France good occupation of the centre with four players, the positioning of the aforementioned 3-2-4-1 gave the Dutch easier access than in this one. With Sneijder or Janssen often unwilling to drop deeper to track Pogba and Lemar, it was left to Wijnaldum and Strootman. With the Netherlands’ double-pivot occupied, this left Griezmann in the #10 position as the free man behind the midfield.

If Wijnaldum and Strootman wanted to protect their defence, they needed to drop off and allow Pogba and Lemar to have the ball in front of their midfield, players who have the potential to start dangerous attacking moves, even from those positions. The problems with access partly led to the very passive defensive display shown by the Netherlands in the first half, and France were able to dominate the game.

Advocaat switches to 4-1-4-1

Attempting to gain some control in midfield, the Netherlands coach introduced Tonny Vilhena in place of Wesley Sneijder at half time, changing to a 4-1-4-1 shape with Vilhena alongside Wijnaldum as a #8.

In theory this could’ve at least partially helped them be more aggressive with their pressing as the two #8s could move higher with the security of Strootman behind them, however Lemar and now Coman still caused them issues within their man-oriented setup.

This manifested itself clearly in a couple of scenes: firstly Lemar dropped into a left-central midfield position as he had done in the first half. Wijnaldum picks him up, but this leaves Kante on the ball with space to move forward. Vilhena is bound by Pogba, so Strootman tries to pressure Kante despite being the deepest midfielder. Griezmann drops into the vacated space and lays the ball off to Kurzawa. A few minutes later, Strootman is caught out again when he decides to mark Coman when he comes inside, leaving Griezmann free once more.

Strootman red card

Before there was a chance to see if the Netherlands and Strootman could adapt to this issue, he was shown a second yellow card. Now they had a new problem to solve – how to chase a lead with 10 players. Apparently, the answer is to continue pressing man-oriented in a 4-4-1 and pretend the space behind the midfield doesn’t exist. Needless to say, the game became rather unclean from a tactical perspective in the last 20 minutes, with France dominating 2nd balls and transition phases against a desperate Netherlands team.

The Dutch tried to press, but they were swatted aside by Pogba to whom Vilhena’s blindside pressing was nothing more than a minor annoyance, and the French forwards, including Mbappe and Lacazette as subs, who enjoyed the open space in front of the Netherlands defence. France scored three goals in the final 20 minutes.

Conclusion

France cruised past an un-intense and poorly structured Netherlands side who again could be in trouble when it comes to qualifying for a major tournament, which represents a great shame for a country with such a rich football history.