Euro 2016 Diary - Semi-finals: France have the moral and actual victory over Germany

Football spends a lot of time talking about justice, and getting what you deserve. Perennially disappointed Belgium defender Vincent Kompany started the recent trend for football’s instances of ‘moral victories’. This came about after a defeat to Manchester United where Manchester City had scored fewer goals than their opponents, but nonetheless Kompany wanted to claim an imaginary good feeling from somewhere, so latched onto and announced this concept.

Perhaps the most consistently morally victorious side is Arsenal. Arsene Wenger has invented a number of things to defend himself with. His side deserved an award for stamina, because in a season they didn’t finish top (which one, we hear you ask), they were still the side that was at the top of the table for the most amount of weeks. There was the constant refrain of qualifying for the Champions League each season as being the equivalent of a trophy. And on and on it goes, along with the record-breaking number of pre-assists that Mesut Ozil has recorded in his career. Cristiano Ronaldo, even, is no stranger to this slapped-arse behaviour, complaining that Iceland had the temerity to try not to concede.

Last night, when France correctly deduced that the way to beat an opponent is to score more goals than they do, Germany were the latest side to encourage this talk of deserving, and who was the better side. It’s not an unchallenged consensus, but it is a largely held point of view. This morning, there’s talk of robberies, of smash-and-grab, of Germany dominating the match against France and, yes, even ‘deserving’ to have beaten France.

Germany had more of the ball than France, that much is true. With a side that calls on much of a Guardiola-led Bayern Munich, it makes sense to adopt a style that the best players are familiar with. With a side that has much better individual players than their rivals, too, it makes sense to keep the ball as much as possible and hope that the superiority leads to chances to be exploited. As noted philosopher Brendan de Botton put it, having the ball for 70% of the match is ‘football death’ for the opposition. Except, er, when it isn’t.

As able as Germany are, they do not have the full complement of Bayern or Barcelona’s players. They have to use some players who play for - spit - other sides. The problem with trying to suffocate another side is that you have to be exceptionally well trained to carry out the task. With players like Benedikt Howedes, or the Van Gaaled Bastian Schweinsteiger, you take a risk that the slowest buffalo doesn’t just get eaten, but it leads to the death of everyone else. Just as Gareth Bale has occasionally carried his Welsh side, so Germany can be undone by a relatively weak link. They are at risk of being - like a Diary written by two authors - less than the sum of their parts.

France were the opposite of that. To coin a phrase (we assume), they were ‘more than the sum of their parts’. Olivier Giroud is an absolutely rancid football, of that there is no doubt. When he ambled towards goal, with the defence behind him and the goalkeeper ahead of him, he suddenly lost momentum and fired in a terrible shot. Nobody in the world expected him to score, and he obviously didn’t want to let anyone down. Nonetheless, France - unlike Germany - didn’t let the inability to field a real striker didn’t blunt their attack, because they have been aware of the deficiency for a year. Andre-Pierre Gignac, essentially Giroud who plays in Mexico, has also been accommodated in the side.

They have their job. Be a lump, and try to keep embarrassment to a minimum, and to at least get in the eyeline of a defender or two. Antoine Griezmann is then able to exploit space on one side, and Dimitri Payet and others can do the same. Patrice Evra provides width, and Paul Pogba and Blaise Matuidi occupy the central space. They have some excellent players, clearly, but player-by-player, Germany edge it, certainly in terms of top-level experience. France were certainly underdogs, but they understood what the notion of ‘deserving’ is in football. That is, you set up your team as best you can to be a side. Mathieu Valbuena was a victim of not suiting the team, as were Karim Benzema and Hatem Ben Arfa, but it is hard to imagine how any of them could have been included to improve the side. Benzeman is obviously a better player than Giroud or Gignac, but neither of them have allegedly been involved in a blackmail plot on a colleague. That does tend to sour the atmosphere.

France can be direct, can make the most of their forwards, and defend better on the counterattack, and so that’s what they did. It isn’t especially complicated, but football doesn’t have to be if it doesn’t serve the interests of the team. It does at Barcelona, and it does at Bayern Munich. It didn’t at Manchester United last season, and it doesn’t anywhere Rafael Benitez has pitched up in the last seven years. Deschamps has his faults, and he had his faults as a player, but currently none of them are in picking and assembling a team that can achieve more than the majority might expect, and there are very few managers to do that on a consistent basis. He has done it all without a competitive match for two years in the preparation, and with players who would get nowhere near the German side.

They play Portugal in the final, and the roles will be reverse. France have the superior individuals, and should expect to see most of the ball. However much they dominate, however many chances they create, lets not pretend that anyone but the winner deserves to be described as such. Unless, of course, Mark Clattenburg is appointed referee.