Argentina's defeat was a sad one, as they abandoned their 442 formation from the previous match against Algeria in favor of a 433, with Messi at the top of the line in an attempt to create a so-called strikerless play. Higuain was unavailable, with Pavon replacing him on the right, while France played a deformed 4231, with Matuidi on the left side. However, in the actual match, both sides returned to a 433 formation, with Matuidi dropping back to the back to make tackles.
Frankly, I was disappointed with the game. Argentina did not manage to stalemate France in a fierce confrontation as I expected, and then gradually used Messi to break down the opponent's defense. Even though they wanted to show blood, they were unprepared for Mbappe's speed. If not for France's own vulnerabilities, Argentina would have lost 3-0.
France were also quite a sight to behold. In the first half, they attacked Mbappe, and as expected, he was involved in all three of France's goals, including two of his own and the 12-yard penalty in the opening 13 minutes. Mbappe created all three goals almost single-handedly, and his play caused Argentina to be in a state of instant confusion, taking a long time to stabilize their position. If you take away his play, the French team as a whole was actually inconsistent.
Argentina still started Mascherano at the back, but they didn't make effective adjustments to Mascherano's problems. At the critical moment of the French attack, Argentina's three backs rushed upfield, with a huge space at the back, and should have left two center backs and a trailing back to face all the opponents, instead of being forced to chase back. This can build a deep defense, supplemented by a side back, in order to effectively contain the French counterattack. When attacking, you can't completely ignore the opponent's defense either.
The Argentine defense looked overly casual, playing the ball their way, but unprepared for France's fastest player, Mbappe, whose style of play has been consistent from Monaco to Paris Saint-Germain, especially his long sprints, Rojo was waiting at the back, but Mbappe suddenly kicked the ball out of the air before getting close to Rojo, and then sprinted at full speed, which Rojo had no time to prepare for. Rojo had at least two seconds to turn or shovel the ball but his reaction was still not quick enough, leading to a foul outside the box, the two pulled each other into the box, Rojo even pushed Mbappe with his hand, if he hadn't pushed the kick Mbappe might still have had the ball, the referee ruled it a foul in the box and awarded a 12 yard penalty.
Mbappe followed up with a couple more rushes and nearly broke through again.
However, France paid the price for Di Maria's equalizer, which was not defended by a single French player. With a large number of Argentine players pressing into the box, it would not have been out of place for France to have an extra man or two at the back, judging by the distribution of numbers. When Di Maria received the pass in the center, Mbappe was not far away, Giroud was located nearby, Kante was too far to the right, it was too late for him to chase him out, Pogba had already retreated into the back line in order to defend against the Argentinean trio, and the entire central area was left unguarded, which is exactly the problem with France's link-up system, and one of the main reasons for that is to involve Mbappe on the counter-attack, who had been charging for 40 minutes straight and would naturally be exhausted. In fact, no matter what, France had to defend against Messi holding the ball, when Messi was standing next to Di Maria, France fixed their defense on the 18 yard line of the penalty area and stood in a dense position, which was a kind of practice of setting up a bus because they were afraid of Messi's breakthroughs, so they had to line up a good wall of people, and wouldn't break the ball easily, to avoid being passed. However, this approach requires the front field to maintain enough counterattacking ability, and the back must be excellent in the front and back of the movement to be able to convert the counterattack, otherwise it will only be surrounded by the attack.
Get Di Maria the ball and even though it was 30 yards away, he still managed to finish the draw at such speed that Lloris, with Pogba in his sights, was a step slow to get up and only a little too slow to make the save, such was the world class power of Di Maria.
