France won the World Cup by mastering the concept of teamwork

France won the World Cup without ever truly playing the type of soccer that their quality suggested they could. In the final, Croatia dominated for a large part of the match. Even after Antoine Griezmann’s penalty, France played like the smaller side of the two. Yet a victory is a victory, and France are the World champions for the second time in their history. Regardless of this French team not living up to the expectations suggested by the individual quality of their players, they won because this team, as disappointing as it seems, fits well together.

One of the best examples of how France worked on the field was one of their preferred method of attack: The very ordinary and straightforward long ball to Olivier Giroud. It was not the most aesthetic option, but it was crucial for the French team.

Giroud wasn’t the best available striker for France. He’s not the most mobile individual and he often has misses that are so aggravating that it seems like he’s doing it to troll the watching world. He looks like the odd ball out in a French team full of fast, super-technical and expressive forwards. But he’s essential to their success.

Giroud is a big body that can occupy defenders and give his teammates a very safe option to build attacks from. And he’s perfect for France’s other attackers, especially Antoine Griezmann, who is much smaller, faster and whose game depends on movement rather than tussling with defenders.

Griezmann and Giroud are the modern version of the Little and Large striker partnership. Giroud fights with defenders, wins headers and brings them down into the path for Griezmann. Griezmann then takes the ball forward and the rest of the French players can join in with the attack. Giroud also does it for Kylian Mbappe and Blaise Matiudi when he has to get the ball out wide. And if the attackers are far away, he holds it until they arrive or wins the foul as defenders pull and push him to get the ball back. Giroud only looks odd when it comes to aesthetics, but in terms of pure functionality of the team, he was an assured presence.

The same idea works for the disjointed nature of the wingers for France. Putting Blaise Matuidi, a natural central midfielder, in the left wing spot is a weird idea, but it’s one that’s done in order to attain a balance with Mbappe. What it does is that it forces opposing teams to attack from one side, Mbappe’s side, because Matuidi, being more defensive, helps to shut down everything on the left. It makes teams predictable and forces them into throwing players forward on the side of France’s most dangerous attacker. It’s a trap.

Yet, even in times when opponents try to go down from the left, France are comfortable winning it there, and they can quickly release Mbappe on the other side as defenders rush to recover.

That plan is what created Pogba’s goal in the final. The ball was won the left, quickly sent to Pogba in the middle and Pogba hit a long diagonal ball to Mbappe who was one-on-one with a Croatia defender, with the rest of the Croatian defense stretched and sprinting back to recover. Mbappe dribbled into the box, cut it back to Griezmann, who they laid it off for Pogba to shoot. The first attempt was blocked and he was able to score with the second.

The idea was to make the left side the safe side for France in order to maximize Mbappe’s powers on the right. It also helps that Lucas Hernandez can attack more on the left if need be, making up for Matuidi’s inability there, while Benjamin Pavard is more conservative on the right, letting Mbappe run out to his heart’s content without fear that that side will be exposed.

Mbappe’s goal actually came from Hernandez driving and beating multiple defenders on the left, before passing to Mbappe at the top of the box. As he did that, Matuidi was standing deep beneath him and watching Mario Madzukic in case of a counter.

Pogba and N’Golo Kante in the middle also helped to maximize each other’s strengths while hiding the weaknesses. Seeing Pogba moved deeper and asked to do less offensively felt as if he was being shackled at first, but his relationship with Kante has been one of the most fun things about France.

Kante is a ball-winning mastermind and is even good at driving the ball forward, but he’s not the passer, dribbler or playmaker that Pogba is. Pogba, for all of those qualities, still lacks a bit defensively. Not that he can’t win the ball back or track opponents, but that side of his game is a work in progress. But together, the two form a really great, stable and fluid working relationship. Kante wins the ball and Pogba creates and releases the forwards from it.

Raphael Varane and Samuel Umtiti also complement each other, with Umtiti’s passing and Varane’s ability to cover and make crucial tackles.

In one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, one of the characters, a bossy companion to the main character who wants to run away from his problems, describes the partnership between the two as: “This is called teamwork. I furnish the brains. You furnish the muscles, the aches and the pains.”

In the book, the partnership between the companion and the main character is too uneven to be considered real teamwork, but the French national team has won the World Cup by mastering the concept.

Didier Deschamps often had France playing like an underdog, but the setup for the team was in each player having a partner that helped raise their game, rather than focusing on the qualities of a few individuals. Rather than building around one or two players, everyone on the team can be at their best because they have someone to cover for them if they fail, and thus, a weird, aesthetically disappointing but functional and victorious team. And when everything works, as it did in the second half against Croatia, they can be utterly devastating.