France 0 – Scotland 1

I can’t believe it.

No, I can. What idiots. Fall for a trick once, and you could call yourself unlucky - fall for it a second time, and you only have yourself to blame.

France had 72% of the possession and went forward at will; Scotland seldom even saw the box, nevermind threatened the goal - and yet in the end Scotland won the game. What is that? Thats rubbish is what that is. How do you lose a game like that? Actually, let me change that to a statement: you simply cannot lose a game like that. If you do you’re never going to win any tournaments – that is if you even qualify for them…

Scotland played in their own half with 11 men behind the ball, and good for them, because it worked. The fact of the matter is that we have to learn how to beat these teams who use this tactic – and fast - because there are countless small countries who use it. So here, Domenech, if you read this site, is what went wrong and some ideas on how to avoid making the same mistakes again:

1. Our formation.  France apparantly played a 4-4-2, but in actuality it was a 4-2-2-2 with Vieira and Makelele playing just in front of the defence. So picture this for a moment: you’ve got Vieira and Makelele lying deep in midfield, Malouda and Ribery on the wings and Anelka and Trezeguet on the edge of the penalty area. So who’s in the middle? “Who” exactly. “No-one” is the answer.

This is a moronic formation and obviously doesn’t work from the start. But why do we even have it in the first place? It’s because Vieira is meant to go forward and link the defence and attack, but seeing as my granny is more mobile than Vieira of late, the best he can do is just run sideways. (I’m giving Domenech the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t actually field a 4-2-2-2 and that he just has misplaced faith in Vieira’s athleticism)

Back to our brilliant formation. In practice we’re obviously not just going to give away possession that easily, so, of course, Malouda and Ribery come inside (with Anelka often dropping deep), with the result that we have midfield possession, yes, but no width and still too many players lying deep. We end up having this midfield column with Trezeguet at its apex. Now surely, Domenech, you can see thats not going to work. Just in case you can’t, I’ll tell you why.

With no width the Scots always knew the attacks were going to come from the middle. Also, with Vieira lying so deep the Scots also knew that we weren’t about to mesmerise them with our passing, because we were so light in midfield that we were forced to play one-twos and just run at them like idiots. Scotland collected like a phalanx around the box every time we came near it and just stood there and laughed at us as they kept us out with ease.

If you think I’m being subjective Domenech, or if you didn’t see it the way I did, then lets look at the stats. For all our possession France only managed 7 shots on target, with almost all of them coming in the last half-hour (after Scotland scored). Of those 7 only 2 came from inside the box, which just illustrates that we hardly ever came near the box.

Now - I have never heard of a more stupid and one-dimensional attack in my life. If I weren’t so distraught, I’d be glad that we lost now and not in the quarter-finals (like we did against Greece in 2004 when they used a similar strategy), because perhaps we’ll learn something from it this time.

How to correct this? A central midfielder will go a long way to improving our formation because he could link the play between defence and attack. Also, in having someone occupy the midfield it will give Malouda and Ribery more opportunities to go wide and get behind the defensive line. Dare I even think it, but they might even be able to send in a few crosses.

2. Vieira and Trezeguet are useless. Trezeguet hasn’t played well for France since 2000 and should be dropped. Simple as that.

Vieira isn’t the player he was 3 or 4 years ago, and hasn’t been for some time. He needs to be dropped. Yes, he had his moments in the World Cup, but that was only when he was galvanised by the presence of Zidane, who also happened to attract defenders like magnets, thereby giving ol’ granny Vieira the space he needs to get his zimmer frame up the pitch.

Of course, Domenech, it wasn’t all bad and some players did very well. Ribery and Malouda are in great form at the moment and seem to have matured of late. Bringing back Anelka looks wise too - not only is he playing well for Bolton, but he looks motivated to play for France again. Diarra and Escude looked very good. Diarra looked very assured and though he didn’t play as well as he did against Italy, he still had a good game. It seems that we’ve unearthed quite a nice little utility player in Diarra. Escude was strong in the air and good coming forward.

Benzema and Nasri looked good when they finally came on the pitch, and it is a testament to their character that they didn’t panic when thrust in at such a difficult stage. Trailing 1-0 in Paris against a team that you know you should beat isn’t the best time to go in – especially when the crowd have lost their patience with the team. The fact that Benzema and Nasri they didn’t panic and weren’t overawed shows their confidence. They also looked hungry and I think Domenech should give them a proper chance to prove themselves for France.

So where does this result leave us? Third, thats where… Thankfully Italy and Scotland still have to play at Hampden, so it means that our fate is still in our own hands, but only just. We have to play the Ukraine, away, on the final day and at the moment it looks like we’ll probably have to win that game.

Domenech, I hope you read this post and make some changes, because if you don’t you might find yourself having a very quiet summer in 2008.

France: Landreau, Abidal, Thuram, Escude, L. Diarra, Makelele, Vieira, Malouda, Ribery, Anelka, Trezeguet

Scotland: Gordon, Alexander, Hutton, McManus, Weir, Brown, Ferguson, Fletcher, Hartley, McCulloch, McFadden

-J.P. de Rosnay