Sweden vs France: Uninspired Performance Suggests French Are in Deep Trouble

Entering the final day of group play on Tuesday, France looked to be in pristine shape to make a deep run in the Euro 2012 tournament.

They were promptly humbled in embarrassing fashion with their 2-0 loss to Sweden, who had nothing to play for aside from pride. France still advance thanks to England’s controversial win over Ukraine, but they enter the quarterfinals with no momentum to speak of.

Sure, Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored one of the prettiest and most acrobatic goals of the entire tournament, but it was much more than that.

The Swedes exposed their deficiencies on defense. The French back four were horrific, and it has been an issue that’s popped up throughout the tournament. They have to play much better moving forward if they plan on making a deep run.

The other big issue is their lack of depth on offense. Sweden was able to neutralize the dual threat that is Karim Benzema and Franck Ribery, and it left the rest of the squad with the task of picking up the slack. Instead, the offense sputtered badly and only collected 10 shots on goal, despite possessing the ball for 57 percent of the match.

The loss ended a 23-game unbeaten streak in tournament play for France.

Their confidence level is now incredibly low if you gauge it by their coach’s comments after the match. You can't possibly be expected to play your best with Laurent Blanc speaking like this after advancing to the next round (via The Globe and Mail):

"

We were too average in too many areas to hope to win this match. The Swedish team played with all their hearts, they were better prepared than us. If you analyze the game we were in trouble for most of it. You have to be optimistic to think that we can beat Spain, but it’s hard right now to imagine that we can.

"

Now, France have been relegated to a match in the quarterfinals on Saturday (2:45 p.m. ET) against Spain, who are arguably the most talented team in the entire tournament. They are much more balanced, have better athletes and are going to be relentless on the attack.

France don’t stand a chance if they play with the lethargic energy displayed on Tuesday. Some sort of fire needs to be lit under them or it’s going to be a massacre.

They have four days to figure it out. 

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