Rabat – After two weeks in charge of the French national team, Zinedine Zidane finished the latest international window unbeaten in the UEFA Nations League thanks to his tactics and to the substitutes who appeared as game changers.
Zidane has made a perfect start as the head coach of the French national team.
With three wins over Turkey and Belgium twice and one draw with Italy in the first four games, Zidane became the first French head coach to win his debut game since Aime Jacquet in 1994 and the first to go unbeaten in the first four games since Raymond Domenech in 2004.
“We did this over 15 days, in the first international window. It’s encouraging and I’m very optimistic for what comes next. We worked really well, and it was important to put in fifteen days of real quality,” said Zidane in a press conference on Monday.
In their second game against Belgium on Monday, Les Bleus registered an average of 62% possession. The effectiveness, however, was absent as Zidane’s squad created too few chances and not enough serious ones, especially in the final third during the first half of the game. “Even if not everything from the first half should be thrown away, we lacked penetration in the final thirty meters, something that let us down in the other three matches,” Zidane acknowledged.
The impact of the absence of captain Kylian Mbappe, who suffered injury after scoring against Turkey, was clear as France did not score in the first half during their last eight games.
But the French squad showed character as the substitutes who were subbed in during the second half turned the game on its head. The win was helped in no small part by Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise who provided an assist before later scoring twice himself alongside the goals of both Désiré Doué and Rayan Cherki, all in the last 15 minutes of the game.
Zidane was very happy with the reaction from his team who responded to his tactic. “He [Zidane] brings in ideas; we follow them – we’ve done that well over the last four matches, we’re going to continue like this,” said Michael Olise after the game.
Zidane’s squad is set to visit Italy before hosting Turkey through the upcoming international window in November.
