France

Earlier in the day, we wrote that the wide positions would hold the key to this game, but a closer look at the stats after an hour show that it’s actually the players in the middle of the park that are dictating affairs. It seems that France are very much playing in position, if you’re a midfielder, you play in the middle of the park. The Dutch, however, have a more relaxed attitude to things (as you might expect), and allow their players to have a bit of freedom. Have to say the laissez-faire attitude is coming up roses for van Basten’s side…take a look and see if you agree - current score 3-1 to the Orangemen.

Stats from http://www.castrolindex.com

In the first 15 minutes, van der Vaart and Toulalan are the busiest players, having covered 2022 and 1972 metres respectively. Toulalan was France’s best player statistically last time out, and van der Vaart is always hard-working. But take a look at where they are doing their work. The French player is playing very much within a zone, whereas the Ducthman has obviously got licence to roam. Let’s see which pays the dividends.

Stats powered by http://www.castrolindex.com

We’ve said it before (actually only just last night), and we’re bound to say it again before this tournament is over, but if you’ve got full backs who aren’t willing to take a punt and power down the touchlines, then you’ve not got much of a chance. A point proved by the Dutch in their opener against Italy, who exploited the wide positions beautifully, and crossed with precision. In fact we have a stat to support this fact (when do we ever not?), and it shows that the Netherlands are top of the pile when it comes to completing crosses. 33.3% might not seems a great deal, but when you know that one in every three is going to be met with a scoring chance, firing them in from wide seems like common sense.

Whether Jeremy Toulalan is playing today depends on the fitness of Patrick Viera, but he did himself no harm in the 0-0 against Romania. He has the most touches of any man on the field with 111, was successful in all eight of his attempted tackles and ran as far in the last 15 minutes as he did in the first. Quite an effort and one of a man clearly playing for his place.

So who will win out tonight? Tom thinks the Dutch will complete an historic double and ease to a 2-0 success.

Jack reckons that the crazy Orange men will triumph by a massive 6-0!!

As ever, our stats were powered by http://www.castrolindex.com

Castrol Performance Index ambassador Arsene Wenger has been speaking about the tournament in general, and what the CPI can tell us about certain aspects of the games we have seen.

He reckons a big part of the reason that the games have been quite under par has been the psychological pressure that the players are under not to lose, leaving them a ‘little apprehensive’ about committing too much to the game or throwing their force forwards and conceding on the break. The ‘mental pressure’ of having ‘the weight of a country on their shoulders’ is obviously telling, but the Arsenal manager has had a look at the CPI stats, and has found some interesting points to show it isn’t all just in the mind.

He noticed that Croatia collectively covered 105km in their game with Austria, and commented that in the Champions League and Premier League he’d expect to see a figure around 115-125 km. He didn’t put the lack of work rate down to the players being tired after long domestic seasons though, more that they haven’t played for 3 or 4 weeks and ‘can’t sustain the pace of a top level game’. He expects distances and pace to improve as the tournament goes on.

As far as the France – Romania games goes, Wenger saw that the French were frustrated by the deep defending of their opponents, who didn’t ‘leave any space behind them’ for Les Bleus to attack. As the Romanian defence’s heat map below shows they certainly were packing the central area in and around the edge of the penalty area, which ultimately succeeded as a strategy and frustrated the French no end.

What Wenger has noticed is a change of tactics once a team goes ahead. ‘Holland scored first and Italy had to take more chances’, which resulted in them leaving themselves open at the back. He ended with a stark warning for any team that concedes in the tournament – ‘84% of the time [he’s talking in general], the team that scores first wins the big games’. Certainly true of the games so far in Euro 2008, so let’s see if this pattern continues through the tournament.

Over at The Guardian, Barney Ronay has some interesting analysis of Euro 2008, where it is going wrong, and how some teams are getting it so right.

He pays homage to the exciting attacking systems employed by teams such as Germany – Podolski (an attacker) playing on the left wing, but joining in the attack whenever possible – and Portugal – giving Deco a central role, but allowing him to roam freely. The true key though, appears to be the role that the full backs are playing. Bosingwa and Ferreira barrelling forward gave Portugal extra men up front, Lahm for Germany provided crosses from the right and even when Croatia were ‘under the cosh’ against Austria, Pranjic was leading the attack. Feisty stuff from a left-back, and much copied by the successful Dutch, Spanish and (to a certain extent) the French. His theories are supported by the heat maps from the CPI.

There’s plenty of comment on Barney’s article, so why not head over and join in the fray?

The group of death! France set to take on the world. Well, actually it was a fairly disappointing match, but the Romanian defence did their job, with the entire team covering 110,526m… Far more than the French who generated the miserly team total of 104,360m.

Karim Benzema, before he was taken off, was France’s most industrious player, as was Romania’s Cocis. Nicolita took up the mantle, and ended up covering  well over 12km in the match - and it is the Romanian defence that will take all the plaudits. Alan Hansen may have rated it ‘the worst game he has ever seen’, but  as a former steward at Swnasea City, I simply could not agree.

World Cup Blog had it right questioning the French strikeforce, with Ian Rose suggesting “Their first weakness? Scoring. Despite having an incredible array of attacking options that includes Franck Ribery, Nicolas Anelka, Thierry Henry and the young phenom Karim Benzema, the French have struggled lately to score goals from open play.” How right he was!

But fear not - for now we’re on to the most anticipated game of the tournament… Italy vs Holland in 45 minutes. Bring it on!

Anyone watching the France vs Romania game will not have been surprised to see the ineffective Nicolas Anelka withdrawn, as French manager Domenech tries desperately to install a little excitement into his misfiring team. We certainly weren’t, and this table may interest anyone of a Chelsea, or Gallic persuasion. Other than Lilian Thuram, Nicolas Anelka was the least industrious outfield player on the whole pitch in the first 60 minutes. Indeed, one of our favourite sites Bitter and Blue have a very interesting perspective on him over here.

Stats provided by the CPI: