As Kadidiatou Diani nodded home France’s opener and ran off towards the corner flag, her team-mates instinctively ran over to join the goalscorer in celebration. There were two exceptions, however.
Selma Bacha, France’s left-winger, instead sprinted over to the player who had assisted Diani’s goal, left-back Sakina Karchaoui. The two embraced, together, away from their team-mates. It told a story about France’s tactics.
One of the beauties of international football tactics is that managers are generally presented with a lopsided group of players. They can have a shortage in one position or a surplus in another and, unlike club football — where gaps can be filled via the transfer market — managers are stuck with what they’ve got.
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And therefore, in international football, you see compromises. A familiar pattern comes when an international manager has two good attacking full-backs down the same flank. Often, particularly down the left — because left-footers tend to be less capable of playing on the right than vice-versa — a manager uses both in tandem down the same flank. In men’s international football, Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson have done it for Scotland. England tried it once with Ashley Cole and Wayne Bridge. It rarely works.
For France at World Cup 2023, though, it does. Manager Herve Renard can call upon the best two left-backs, by a distance, in Division 1 Feminine. Karchaoui holds down the left-back spot for Paris Saint-Germain and Bacha does so for Lyon. Both can play higher up the pitch if required, but there’s little doubt they’re both primarily left-backs. A couple of years ago, they were both left-backs at Lyon.
Karchaoui had established herself as an exciting, attack-minded left-back for Montpellier and was a regular in the national squad, too. A move to either Lyon or PSG was inevitable and they battled it out for her signature in the summer of 2020. Karchaoui chose Lyon. Maybe it was the wrong move. Lyon had won the previous 14 titles. That season, for the first time since 2006, they fell short. The champions were PSG, although she did win the Champions League, starting in the 3-1 final victory over Wolfsburg.
Karchaoui’s arrival in itself was mildly controversial in that it threatened to hold back the development of Bacha, then 19 and ready to establish herself. But Karchaoui was, at that stage, considered the better left-back in an attacking sense.
Things didn’t go quite right for Karchaoui in Lyon, although she wasn’t the only player who moved clubs in 2020 and struggled to settle in a new environment; Covid-19 made life difficult for players moving to a new city. Tactically, maybe her new club didn’t suit her, with Lyon moving away from full-backs who could drift infield — Lucy Bronze had left — and towards more linear players.
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And when PSG came in for Karchaoui after just a single season at Lyon, she made the move across the (new) divide in French women’s football. Unfortunately for her, Lyon have won the next two titles.
It’s odd, therefore, to see Karchaoui and Bacha together down the left for France. It’s also funny, considering Karchaoui was once considered the better player going forward, to see her occupying the full-back position while Bacha plays on the wing.
But when you see the system in action, it makes perfect sense. By playing in the deeper position, Karchaoui has space to break into and more freedom to receive the ball. She played 88 passes in this comfortable 4-0 win over Morocco, precisely twice as many as Bacha.
But the key is the flexibility. When Karchaoui flies forward on the overlap and France lose the ball, Bacha is happy to fill in. That type of position-switching, up and down the pitch in vertical lines, was the original, somewhat modest intention of Total Football.
The France opener was a lovely move: Karchaoui charging forward, playing a one-two with Bacha and then crossing perfectly for Diani’s header. Their embrace afterwards wasn’t the first time they’d acknowledged one another after a good move. Five minutes in, they swapped passes in a move that eventually came to nothing and high-fived as they crossed over, returning to their normal positions.
Bacha, the midfielder, tends to drift infield while looking over her shoulder to check if Karchaoui is advancing, but she’s particularly adept at waiting for the opposition right-winger to close down Karchaoui, then sprinting back over to the touchline to exploit space on the outside. At that point, Karchaoui pushes infield. It’s a clever rotation that often caught Morocco out.
Things didn’t always work perfectly. Bacha was frustrated by Karchaoui trying to play an ambitious ball in behind midway through the second half when she was free on the left. She was again not found when in a good position later on; this time, Karchaoui cut inside and curled the ball tamely towards goal.
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“They’re very important players for France,” said Renard. “Their relationship is very good, they’re working very well. That first goal was a very beautiful action, we’re lucky to have these kinds of players. But sometimes we have to be better with the last pass — we have to be better in the next game.”
That next game comes against Australia, a particularly intriguing battle given the strength of the hosts’ right flank so far. Right-winger Hayley Raso has arguably been Australia’s most efficient player, while right-back Ellie Carpenter will know both of France’s left-sided players — and particularly her direct opponent Bacha — from Lyon.
Renard might have to come up with something different to surprise Australia, but with the versatility and adaptability of Bacha and Karchaoui, he’s able to keep opponents guessing.
(Top photo: Elsa – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
