France 2-1 Germany: 5 Talking Points

Modified Oct 17, 2018 07:18 GMT

Griezmann celebrates after scoring from the spot

#3 France's individual quality is their greatest strength

Pogba, Griezmann and Hernandez combined to score

Paul Pogba gave a good account of how his season's been going. One minute, he's picking out inch perfect passes and incisive through balls and in the next, he gets caught in possession unnecessarily and gives the ball away for the first German goal.

He got better in the second half and so did his midfield partner N'Golo Kante. Matuidi was all industry yet again and his labour bore fruit as he won the men in blue a penalty in the second half.

France's first goal was one that was made in Madrid as Lucas Hernandez slalomed his way into space and whipped one furiously into the head of Antoine Griezmann. The diminutive forward instinctively helped it on over Neuer and into the goal.

Griezmann's dispatching the penalty that they were awarded subsequently inspired confidence as well. On nights like these when the going gets tough, France has enough and more individual talent in their ranks to resort to for a moment of inspiration that change the game on its head.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Sripad