“We’ll have to be strong in midfield” against Spain, analyses Bixente Lizarazu

The semi-final between Les Bleus and the Spanish takes place on Tuesday evening at 9pm in Germany. The former international hopes that Les Bleus will be more offensive even if he does not believe in a revival of Kylian Mbappé, “physically not at his best” and psychologically blocked.

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The captain of the Blues, Kylian Mbappé, on July 5, 2024. (PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP)

Spain “is a team that likes to have the ball, so we will have to be strong in the middle to be able to contest this possession”analyses the former world champion Bixente Lizarazu on Tuesday July 9 on franceinfo, a few hours before the Euro semi-final which will pit France against Spain, at 9 p.m. in Munich, Germany.

“It’s a team that is also strong in transition,” he continues. “That is to say, as soon as she recovers the ball, there are two players, Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams, on the wings, who are very strong dribblers who are very fast and who can cause a lot of problems for the French defense. So that’s all that we’re going to have to look at.”

The franceinfo football consultant also hopes to see “a French team that is waking up offensively”since it has so far only scored three goals, one from a penalty, and the other two scored against their own team by Austria and Belgium. An offensive inefficiency which can be explained in part by the poor form of Kylian Mbappé, blocked by “a psychological problem”, himself induced by “a difficult season” due to conflicting relations with his now former club PSG, believes the former defender of the Blues.

Kylian Mbappé will be particularly scrutinized on the other side of the Pyrenees, since he will join his new club Real Madrid after the Euro, but Bixente Lizarazu does not believe in a miraculous awakening of the French striker: “Physically, he is not at his best, so it is not because he plays against Spain and that he is going to go to Real Madrid that all of a sudden it is going to change anything”he judges.


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