Kylian Mbappe and France’s problem isn’t the mask – it’s the men behind him

He started with the mask off.

The world has seemed fascinated by Kylian Mbappe’s nose since it was broken in France’s first game of the tournament, against Austria. Or, perhaps more accurately, what would protect that nose.

Mbappe began the warm-up before their final group game against Poland without the mask on. He eventually donned it but was fiddling with the straps, shifting it around to try and make it comfortable. At the start of the second half, he summoned a member of the French backroom staff over from the sidelines to help him adjust it.

Before the game Robert Lewandowski, who had to wear a mask himself in 2015 when he was at Bayern Munich, said that it was “annoying” and that his “field of vision was hampered”.

But if the Poland captain was helpful before the game, he wasn’t quite so much during it: towards the end of the game, Lewandowski pushed Mbappe in the face (probably accidentally), causing the Frenchman to stomp around for a few seconds in irritation, touching his mask and making sure no extra damage had been caused to his nose. He cursed his opposite number, and while it’s tricky to be definitive about what Mbappe actually said based on lip-reading alone, let’s just say it didn’t seem complimentary to Lewandowski. Or some members of his family.

“I thought he was quite good with the mask,” said France coach Didier Deschamps after Tuesday’s 1-1 draw. “He needed to get used to it. But he’s hungry to play and the game will have done him some good.”

Deschamps also said that one of the problems Mbappe encountered was that sweat was getting in his eyes, and the mask complicated matters when he was trying to wipe it away. A minor irritation, but even minor irritations can be major when you’re essentially carrying the team.

Because Mbappe and France’s big problem in this game wasn’t the mask, it was the man behind it. Or, more accurately, the men behind him.

You would think that a team like France, who reached the last two World Cup finals and have a B-team more talented than most other first-choice XIs at Euro 2024, would not rely quite so much on a single player.

But certainly before the introduction of the other two grands chiens in the France squad, Olivier Giroud and Antoine Griezmann, everything seemed to be directed towards and through Mbappe. He was like the kid at school who’s better than everyone else, so their team-mates just pass the ball and expect them to do something.

If that is something which irritates Mbappe, he didn’t help himself at times. Particularly the moment in the first half when Bradley Barcola found himself inside the box with a shooting chance, only for Mbappe to whip up on his outside like a cat and nip the ball of his former club-mate’s toe. It was a very “I’ll take it from here, son” moment.

It looked like Mbappe felt he needed to do everything by himself. He had five of France’s eight shots on target. Also, take this chart, which shows how many times he tried to dribble past Poland players.

Eight times, six completed is not only more than any of his colleagues attempted in the game, but it’s also the joint-most completed take-ons so far in a single game during the tournament, level with Jeremy Doku for Belgium against Slovakia. Only Doku, Spain’s Nico Williams and Georgia’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia have attempted more take-ons in a single game so far.

He also scored the only goal, from the penalty spot, casting aside the curious fact that he had never previously found the net at a European Championship.

Statistics like that, plus stealing the ball from Barcola, don’t exactly scream ‘I trust my colleagues’.

Mbappe in theory started as the central forward in France’s front three, but the actual time he spent in the No 9 position was nominal. Early in the game he dropped deep quite a bit and encouraged Adrien Rabiot to push forwards, a move that you felt had promise but didn’t happen enough. He drifted to the left, as if he were yearning for the spot from which he scored so many goals at the World Cup. When Giroud was introduced he shifted back across there full-time, which accounts for most of the touches shown on this chart, but not all of them.

The other issue is that it makes France very predictable. You could argue that they won’t have quite so much of a problem later in the tournament when Griezmann, rested for this game, is back in the starting XI.

But where is the other inspiration coming from? Ousmane Dembele was, apart from winning the penalty with a direct run, ineffective and wasteful. Barcola, as well as suffering that footballing emasculation, didn’t do a huge amount beyond a few nice one-twos with Mbappe.

📊 How Group D finished… #EURO2024 pic.twitter.com/TgJLWSc4yz

— UEFA EURO 2024 (@EURO2024) June 25, 2024

The midfield didn’t impress too much either. There was a moment early in the game when Mbappe dropped deep and played a wonderful through ball to N’Golo Kante, who did what he tends to do when he gets within 30 yards of the opposition goal: he panicked and hoofed what must have been a pass or an attempt at a shot way out of play. There could never have been a more perfect example of “if only the roles were reversed”.

Maybe none of this matters hugely. What team doesn’t lean on their best player? We’ve all fallen into the trap of over-analysing France’s performance in the early stages of a tournament before, only for them to defy logic and laugh at our little concerns and conclusions from the final.

But before the game against Poland, people seemed to think that France’s biggest problem was Mbappe’s nose and the mask he had to wear to protect it. After the game, it felt like that was the least of their problems.

(Top photo: Joris Verwijst/BSR Agency/Getty Images)