Coming into the 2022 FIFA World Cup, a lot was made about who France wouldn’t be taking, with N’Golo Kanté, Karim Benzema, and Paul Pogba being the most high-profile names to miss out. While the two South American sides led the odds early, France was well-positioned as an early dark horse.
Then came Les Bleus’ toughest challenge of the tournament in the quarter-finals: England. A hyper-conservative side with opportunistic forwards, France went in knowing that Kylian Mbappé would be subject to close marking, as would Olivier Giroud, but it didn’t matter.
Throughout the tournament, Antoine Griezmann had been magnificent from midfield, and against England,he masterfully pulled the strings from just in front of a stout backline. It earned him praise on the night, but it wasn’t out of the ordinary.
Griezmann giving France more ways to win
Giroud’s thunderous goals and Mbappé’s ability to school any defender one-on-one are big reasons behind France being at 11/10 at the time of the betting odds World Cup 2022 semi-finals, as further proven by the duo being at 6/1 and 1/2, respectively, to win the FIFA Golden Boot.
However, Griezmann has been essential to France going forward and was arguably the third-best performing outfielder left in the tournament by the semi-finals – just behind Mbappé and Messi. In fact, he’d been playing so well that, even with the goalies of Croatia and Morocco still involved, Griezmann was third-favourite at 16/1 to win the FIFA Golden Ball.
Along basic stat lines, the Mâcon-born forward secured three assists by his fourth start, with one substitute appearance, but his real contributions have been far greater, and he truly stepped up against England to give France a shot at going to the World Cup Final in back-to-back years.
Griezmann galvanised French to victory
Officially starting in attacking midfield, Griezmann played more of a free-roaming role behind the frontline, but smartly veered far more often towards the right wing, as opposed to Mbappé’s constantly crowded left wing. As the heat maps from Who Scored’s 1-2 report of England vs France show, much of his time was essentially in right midfield.
Still, there was a lot of attention on Giroud up the middle, but a little bit of space on the wing gave Griezmann all that he needed to ping a perfect cross into his striker. It was his second, and best, assist of the game, with the ball dropping perfectly from deep, near Jordan Pickford’s front post, and right between England’s first-choice centre-backs.
Fans were treated to the complete skillset of Griezmann against England. His assists landed him the leader in the category and the last one on three to remain in the tournament, while his 18 chances created, per CBS Sports on 11 December, outranked everyone else. Bundle in his 85 pass percentage, 3.4 key passes per game, and an average of 3.6 long balls per game, and you can see that he’s masterfully pulled the attacking strings.
What’s more, French outlet L’Equipe reported on 11 December that he gave a rousing team talk to get Les Bleus fired up for the second half. The 31-year-old told the dressing room: “We can’t go home tonight guys; we have to do more.” With England pushing for the win in the second half, his words might have been the difference-makers.
Mbappé and Giroud rightly get all of the attention that they earn, but the midfield maestro that is Antoine Griezmann deserves every ounce of credit that comes his and the team’s way.
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