France vs Belgium: Winners and Losers from the semi-final

Loser- Olivier Giroud

Olivier Giroud

This really should have been a thrashing. While Belgium dominated possession and most of the game was spent in France’s third, it was France who created far better chances. In fact, according to Caley Graphics, France had 1.8 expected goals (a statistic that measures the quality of chances created by a team) with the Umtiti goal actually being one of their harder chances. However, there was one reason why France were not able to capitalise on their chances: Oliver Giroud.

Giroud missed chance after chance to put the game away as he took six shots, none of which were on target. In fact, Giroud still hasn’t had a shot on target in the entire tournament despite playing as a striker for a team that includes Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann and Paul Pogba.

There were several occasions on which Mbappe and Griezmann combined to tee up a perfect chance for Giroud only for the Chelsea striker to miss. Deschamps should consider playing Mbappe down the middle and using another winger instead of the wasteful Giroud.