Teams of the Decade, #19: France, Euro 2004
This side gets in here because of the idea behind it, rather than the actual outcome. France were poor at Euro 2004 – they were outplayed by England in the first game, and were utterly toothless when being dumped out by Greece.
Jacques Santini’s logic was this – he wanted to play two holding players behind Zidane, and he wanted Trezeguet and Henry upfront. He needed width, which was provided from Robert Pires. He also knew he had a left-back with a reputation for getting up and down the line all day, and a forward (Henry) who liked drifting to the left when his team were defending.
So, rather than fielding a standard left-sided midfielder, he came to a compromise. When his side didn’t have the ball, the left-sided width came from Henry. When his side did, the width came from Lizarazu making forward runs, safe in the knowledge that his side had two holding players, and a left-footed centre-back (Silvestre) who was comfortable covering at full-back. Zidane also took up a left-ish role.
Where did it go wrong? To be honest, take your pick. First, France didn’t need two holding players against any of the sides they came up against (with the arguable exception of England). Second, Robert Pires was actually quite uncomfortable on the right-hand side – he may be right-footed, but he couldn’t cut in as he did so effectively for Arsenal, and it broke up the Henry-Pires partnership that worked so well. Third, Bixente Lizarazu was slightly over-the-hill. Not enough to make him an inadequate full-back – far from it – but enough that asking him to play in two positions at once was completely unrealistic, especially in the summer heat of Portugal, and with the games coming thick and fast. (It’s probably no coincidence that the goal which knocked France out of the tournament, in the video below, came from a lazy challenge from Lizarazu). Fourth, when Pires drifted to the left side, as he occasionally did, the team became completely unbalanced because Gallas was reluctant to provide attacking width on the right as Lizarazu could on the left.
Finally – and whisper this quietly – Zinedine Zidane was no longer consistent enough to base a successful team around. He’d just come off the back of an average season where Real Madrid finished a distant fourth place in La Liga, and was used to the easy life of the Galacticos, where it was acceptable to strut around the pitch leaving the defending to the defenders.
In the end, Santini’s admirable attempt to try an unusual system (often needed in international sides) became a classic case of trying to cram your best players into the same team at the expense of balance. France rarely looked like scoring against Greece, simply because they only ever attacked with four players, and Greece defended with eight.
Teams of the Decade, #19: France, Euro 2004
So how does this team get in your top 20?!?! It’s all well and good saying, ‘because of the idea’, if nothing actually came of the system surely it was flawed and ultimately ineffective.
Because, at outlined at the start:
“This list is not attempting to name the best twenty sides of the decade, rather, on a site focussed upon tactics, it is attempting to outline the twenty most interesting sides in terms of the way they played, or in the way the team was set out on the pitch.”
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/01/11/teams-of-the-decade-explained/
It falls into category 1:
“Teams who used unusual formations. They may or may not have been successful, but they experimented with an unusual shape that made them interesting to study from a tactical point of view.”
Of course it was flawed and ultimately ineffective, but that makes it an interesting case study. As stated, it is not an attempt to merely outline the twenty best teams of the decade (likewise, Bologna would obviously not be anywhere near the list), but twenty teams that are worth remarking upon tactically.
The issue of asymmetrical formations is relevant at the moment with a lot of teams setting out like this – http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/dec/01/england-football-tactics-fabio-capello – and this was an example of a team packed with major players trying – and failing – to play that way.
Dear ZM,
I’m not going to question your inclusion of this team in the top 20, but I do think it’s strange that you decided to create a new tag that seems particularly limited: “france european championships euro 2004 lopsided zidane henry full-backs” Although there are many fans of French football, I think that even the most die-hard France fans will be short on patience if you begin a series chronicling what many consider a disappointing campaign and some have gone so far as to label a failure.
/sarcasm… Great site. Congrats on finishing this series. It’s been great to read.
It seem tactically right, but it didn’t worked. I guess with the heat of Portugal coming into a factor, for national teams, they have to adjust where the tournament is played & see how the usual tactics, & their players react to the climate.
I also read in article that, in qualification games, most of it is 80% attacking, & 20% defending. The major tournament is 50-50. Playing two holding midfielders does sound right. Probably if one of is Makelele, the other has to have a good long shot & long passing ability to give the attacking a bit of an edge.
An interesting choice for the top 20, and I can see why you included them, particularly in the context of the coach feeling he had to mould his tactics around what he judged to be his best 11. As you point out in the article, this is something that’s often necessitated in international tournaments. It has to be said, however, that a lot of the French players, similar to the Portuguese and Dutch players in the same tournament, were some way past their best. They were down as favourites to win the tournament, with a lot of pundits’ heads being turned by their 100% qualification record, ignoring the incredibly weak group they were in (I think it was Israel, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta, though feel free to correct me). In reality, it should have been realised that Euro 2004 had no outstanding team that could have been seen as clear favourites. If anyone had been paying attention to Greece and the Czech Republic’s progress in qualifications (in far tougher groups than those of France and England), they would not have been surprised at how well they performed in the tournament proper (although I appreciate not many people would have been all that surprised at the Czechs making the semis, but maybe at the gulf in performance and attitude between them and, say, the Dutch and the Germans).
Given the nature of this list, and especially given the inclusion of this particular French team, I wonder what you made of Marcelo Bielsa’s 2002 World Cup Argentina side? If my memory serves me correctly, this was made up of, depending on your viewpoint, a 3-4-3 or 1-2-2-2-2-1. They were pre-tournament favourites, and had a fantastic pool of players (including Roberto Ayala and Javier Zanetti, pound-for-pound the best player this past decade). Watch the video of their opening game against Nigeria, the most comprehensive 1-0 win I have ever seen – they absolutely battered the Nigerians from start to finish, playing the game at a breakneck pace, and raining shots on their goal from all angles and positions.
However, they had a number of problems. Firstly, the pressing game Bielsa had the side play mitigated against them, and I suspect the midday heat of Ibaraki (where they played Nigeria), absolutely sapped the energy of the players, most of whom had only recently completed the season for their European clubs. Secondly, Roberto Ayala, in my opinion only second to Cannavarro as the best central defender of the decade, was injured in the lead-up to the Nigerian game. Thirdly, Bielsa’s selection policy for the 2002 World Cup was idiosyncratic, to put it kindly, with certain team selections veering between controversial (Veron over Aimar), miscalculated (Batistuta over Crespo) and plain wrong (Ortega over Saviola). Claudio Canniggia’s inclusion in the squad was just plain bizarre, and his form for Rangers couldn’t have been ample reason for leaving Saviola out of the squad. This selection policy blew up in Bielsa’s face against a far inferior England, and showed the folly of making the then out-of-form Veron the focal point of his midfield – having been outplayed by Trevor Sinclair and Nicky Butt in the first period, the brilliant Aimar replaced Veron for the second half, leading to a virtual siege on the England goal.
Sorry to go off a posting related to another team, but I thought Argentina 2002 were worth a mention, as I believe that, together with Rafael Benitez’s excellent Valencia teams from 2001 to 2004, they were the most interesting side of this past decade, and were the closest thing we’ve seen to ‘Total Football’.
This is my first posting to a great site – as an armchair expert, it’s great to read a forum with contributors who know better than I do, and appreciate the game’s finer points. I have a masochistic tendency towards reading the trollfests that happen on the BBC and Football365 sites, with contributions from ‘Big Four’ supporters who insist on hijacking any topic to have a go at each other, as well as demonstrate their inability to spell. Or think. I hope they stay away from this one!
Also, well done on being quoted in Marca – fame awaits!
Practically the same team with 2 holding midfielders and the quiet Zidane who could no longer have a team built around him almost won the 2006 world cup
Different manager and different system. Genuine wide players playing where they were comfortable in Malouda and Ribery. Zidane free to roam without too many defensive midfielders.
Besides, the point was that France didn’t need two holding midfielders against a team like Greece that they struggled to break down. In the World Cup 2006 two holding midfielders were neccessary against Spain, Brazil, Portugal and Italy – certainly – but not in the opening games against weak sides. Drawing 0-0 with Switzerland and 1-1 with Korea demonstrates that quite nicely.
I’m french, and I remember this competition as the most frustrating I’ve ever seen.
Not just because we lost with this weird system (not so bad, but too complicated for exhausted players like the old 98’s champions), but also because Giuly was injured, and because Henry didn’t want to play “officially” on the left-hand side (meaning he didn’t make an single effort to help Lizarazu), though he systematically drifted to the left, leaving Trezeguet alone forward.
Nowadays, Henry plays (when he plays) on the left-hand side in Barcelona, but he shuts his mouth…
Giuly was so brilliant with Monaco (remember the Champion’s League) that putting him on the field in place of Henry or Trezeguet was perfectly conceivable. And he was comfortable on the right-hand side (he’s still, but he’s too old now), so Pirès would have played on the left-hand side (in a World Cup 2006 system… which was supposed to be the same that the Euro 2004 system, at the beggining, but it’s another story).
Great website.