Tops / Flops France-Netherlands: Minne feasts, the Netherlands crack

TOPS

Aymeric Minne's recital

Since the start of the Euro, the Nantes center half had demonstrated all his qualities coming off the bench, taking over from a very good Kentin Mahé. A substitute status that he should keep, Guillaume Gille not being a coach to change everything overnight. But after his superb performance against the Netherlands, with 8 goals (out of 10 shots), Aymeric Minne made an impression. At 24, he seems to have come of age in a demanding position. "When it works for me like that, it's great," he rejoiced at the microphone of BeIn Sports. With 16 goals already to his name in this competition, he is simply the top French scorer tied with Hugo Descat (who shoots 7-meter throws) and Dika Mem. Difficult to do better for a substitute, who has everything great.

LiveHandball Euro: Impeccable, the Blues bring the Netherlands down to earth

Nicolas Tournat launches his Euro

Until now, the Kielce pivot had been very discreet in this Euro with his 3 small goals scored.

A total that he would almost double in a good quarter of an hour this Thursday, the first against the Dutch who were struggling to contain him.

Thanks to his perfect 5 out of 5 shooting – to which was added a penalty kick – Nicolas Tournat shone in attack.

While responding defensively, in a sector where he was eagerly awaited due to the absence of Karl Konan, who tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday.

The only downside to his performance, however, was his second period, punctuated only by two missed shots, yet well within his reach.

The sign that Tournat still has to work to gain stability over the entire length of a match.

FLOPS

French difficulties on placed attacks

Since the start of the Euro, apart from an end to the match crossed out without consequence against Serbia, the France team had displayed a rather attractive face in attack.

This was again the case this Thursday for ten minutes, before twenty extremely disappointing minutes.

Facing the very layered defense of the Netherlands, the Kentin Mahé-Dika Mem duo, surprisingly, struggled to find solutions and thwarted in large widths, with insufficient shooting success (5 out of 12 between them).

Above all, the Blues lacked everything for a good quarter of an hour, whether it was fluidity, percussion, imagination.

The kind of gap that may not go unnoticed by their future opponents.

Kay Smits-Luc Steins, back to earth

If the Netherlands managed to extricate themselves from a tough 1st round against host country Hungary, never easy to bring down in front of their fervent public, or in Portugal, they owed it greatly to their pocket centre-half (1.73m) Luc Steins and their prolific right back, Kay Smits, number 1 gunner in the Euro with 32 goals in three matches. Two players who were rightly wary of the Blues. But this Thursday, neither managed to create differences, both finishing on aggregate with 5 goals on less than 50% shooting success. Worse, Smits even missed two seven-meter throws, he who had succeeded in all of them so far in the competition, while Steins only delivered two assists, far from his usual standards. Without their two best players,no wonder the Netherlands finally cracked after 27 minutes of great resistance.