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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Andriy Biba: “The favorites obvious had some cards up their sleeves.”

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

Looking at the group matches at France’98, I dare say that the favorites — Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, and Croatia — having in their stables first class soccer stars, certain of their superiority and their inevitable success in their divisions, decided to conceal their trump cards for further championship play. Winning at this early stage, as they say, does not take much blood. Neither Ronaldo, Batistuta, nor Kluivert showed their best stuff. Put all this on the conscience of trainers and the leaders of world soccer who obviously so reigned in their strategy and tactics in their play. But there were also some exceptions.

The Italians and French had similar problems in organizing their offense. We recall that Cesare Maldini spoke of the incompatible talents of Del Piero, Roberto Baggio, and Gioli (for the second was put on the team at the last minute, and the third in general sat it out). But AimО Jacguet fundamentally changed his teams playing style before the tournament. He obviously understood that winning the championship without an aggressive attack would simply be impossible. In training for the finals Jacguet used only one forward, putting the job of the second one on Yuri Dzhorkaeff, sharply limiting the potential of his outstandingly talented and strong middle line. And in addition in the starting match with South Africa his team used two full-fledged forwards, and Djorkaeff and Zidane got the chance to freely set up their game in the most favorable positions for the full 90 minutes, not like Badji in the final half hour. Maldini let best forwards, hitherto considered absolutely not permissible in order to not allow possible goals.

In one way or another the first meeting the French verified all four of their attackers, for what I think are clear reasons: In contrast to the 1996 Euro, this time the French were successful in organizing a fine attack and not at the expense of a watery counterattack and penalties in order to avoid what befell the Brazilians at the critical moment for them.

Photo:

Andriy Biba

 

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