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Do you nod off more at a match of the Blues than at a flat stage of the Tour de France? That’s normal. The proof in infographics.
“It’s boring to watch. Very boring to watch.” Antoine Griezmann was not talking about Euro 2024 football as a whole, but just about the defensive play of the French team on the eve of the start of the competition. The coach of the Blues, Didier Deschamps, prefers the qualifier “effective” to qualify the roadmap of his team. And given that it finds itself in the quarter-finals of the competition, against Portugal, Friday July 5, still not having scored a goal in the game, it is difficult to really blame him.
Unfortunately, many teams play “efficient” play in this tournament. “We’re a bit bored”summarises the new Lens coach, Will Still. Even the coach of Austria, Ralph Rangnick, did not mince his words on the tactics of some colleagues: “I’ve seen games where it was difficult to stay awake.” Close the ban? “The general level is still very worrying for national football”supports Cyril Linette, former boss of Canal+ and The Teamon the social network X. Is this feeling of weariness justified by the figures?
The number of goals scored is the most obvious indicator to try to objectify the deadly boredom that made you nod off in front of England-Slovenia (0-0) in the first round (and we understand you). After 44 matches played out of a total of 51, this Euro 2024 is, with 2.27 goals per match, in a low average since 1996. But not so disastrous at this stage, Euro 2016 having ended with a starving average of 2.12 goals per match. Just ahead of the dismal Euros 1992 and 1996. The presence of solid or “efficient” teams among those qualified for the quarter-finals (France, Portugal, England…) can however make us fear the worst for the rest of the competition.
The Euro had a certain golden age in terms of spectacle in the 2000s… Before the decision to expand it to 24 teams instead of 16 in 2016, the year Portugal won with a restrictive game and without having won a single group match. The qualification method implemented that year opened the doors to the round of 16 to the best third-placed teams, making the group stage quite uncompetitive (only 8 teams out of 24 went home). The general level was diluted when the Euro in its 16-team format offered an incomparable concentration of talent, even compared to the World Cup. But the trend is towards expanding the competitions.
And since 2016, we have added another week and an extra match to stars who have played more than 50 matches per season (57 for Kylian Mbappé, 52 for Harry Kane and 55 for Toni Kroos 55 in 2024, according to the specialist website Transfermarkt). Polish commentator Darius Spakowzki summed up the general feeling of the followers of this rather unexciting Euro on his podcast: “It’s a tournament of tired teams, tired stars. I’m starting to think that UEFA (and Fifa in two years) are squeezing a lemon in which there is almost no juice left.”
In detail, if there are “good 0-0s”, it is clear that the Netherlands-France, Ukraine-Belgium and all England matches are rather in the category of matches to forget or watch in fast forward. With the average number of goals per match fluctuating between 2 and 3 goals in major competitions, the number of matches with two goals or less is another good indicator of the lack of spectacle. After the round of 16, Euro 2024, with its 53% of matches with less than two goals, is once again close to the period of Spain’s reign (2008-2012). The “Roja”, double European and world champions, were masters in the art of the 1-0 based on the ball confiscated during interminable sequences of possession. This had an impact on the spectacle: 58% of matches produced two goals or less in 2008 and 2010, 61% in 2012, a record in the last thirty years.
This year, one of the main culprits for this feeling of boredom is Didier Deschamps’s Blues, with three matches that were as soporific as possible. According to the ranking of the site The AthleticFrance concentrates three of its four matches in the worst of this Euro so far (the first place being occupied by the exciting Turkey-Georgia finished on the score of 3-1). Austria-France, for example, ranked 39th out of 44, is described as “a match that very few will want to see again”. France-Poland, in 32nd place, is not on its side “not a masterpiece, but not a tunnel of boredom”.
If some French people only follow this Euro through the prism of the Blues’ matches, they risk being disappointed in terms of strong emotions. With only 16 shots on target out of 69 attempted, France is particularly clumsy in front of the opposing goals. This rate of 23% of shots on target remains particularly low, compared to the last competitions of Deschamps’ men, where Mbappé, Giroud and co reached 40% during the victorious Russian epic of 2018 and still 35% during the World Cup in Qatar.
Another proof that the Blues could really do better is the famous “expected goals” indicator. This figure, which aggregates each probability of scoring according to the place where the shot is taken, shows that France is 4 goals behind what could have been expected of them. It remains for Kylian Mbappé, Antoine Griezmann or Marcus Thuram to adjust their sights to cheer up their supporters. At least, no member of the Irrésistibles Français, who travel en masse to encourage the Blues, has experienced the misfortune of this English fan who fell asleep in the stadium during England-Slovenia and only woke up at 4 a.m. in the deserted stadium.