Deschamps’ Experiment Backfires as Lacklustre France Lose to Tunisia
France were already through to the round of 16, but coach Didier Deschamps won’t be happy with the manner of their 1-0 defeat to Tunisia.
As reported by ESPN, Wahbi Khazri scored the only goal of the game in the 58th minute, and Deschamps’ second string, with most of his star names given a rest, failed to do anything to push their case for a place in the team.
Antoine Griezmann had a goal controversially disallowed by the VAR at the end of eight minutes of added time, but in truth France didn’t deserve to get anything from the game against a Tunisia side who will now head home.
Deschamps’ Experiment Backfires
With France already qualified for the round of 16 and almost assured of first place in the group, this game was effectively meaningless for Deschamps. So the France head coach decided to use it as a big experimentation.
Deschamps made nine changes to the team that beat Denmark so convincingly on Saturday leaving Kylian Mbappe, Griezmann and Theo Hernandez on the bench. Only Raphael Varane and Aurelien Tchouameni kept their place in the starting XI. However, rotating is not the problem here, it’s that the system was completely wrong. Les Bleus had no structure and were all over the place.
The 4-3-3 with Matteo Guendouzi as a left-winger and Eduardo Camavinga as a left-back didn’t work at all. It was unbalanced and the players looked lost. Four years ago in Russia, Deschamps also changed everything for the third group game against Denmark, and the 0-0 draw was the worst game of that tournament. He did it again. This time, his team lost, he didn’t learn anything and his experiment backfired.
