France vs Iceland: Didier Deschamps finds winning Euro 2016 formula at just the right moment

France coach has struggled to decide on best formation in opening games but hosts gelled in rout against Iceland

Olivier Giroud celebrates with Antoine Griezmann after opening the scoring for France against Iceland on Sunday night (EPA)

Does it matter that this was France’s first good performance, in their fifth match? Does it matter that it came against Iceland, a team whose qualification for the tournament itself, never mind the quarter-finals, was a modern miracle? Does it matter that even now, with four teams left in Euro 2016, France have still not played anyone they were not expected to beat out of sight? No, no and no.

Tournaments are not won by teams who peak in the group stage. They are won by teams who survive the group stage and peak when it matters, in the knock-out, knife-edge games. The beach resorts of the Mediterranean will be full this week of footballers who played in teams who performed better than France over the first few weeks of Euro 2016: Croatia, Spain, Italy and Poland could all claim that. But none of them are playing in the semi-finals in the middle of this week.

Because all of those qualifications and all of that context was drowned out last night at the Stade de France by the sound of this team finally clicking, the sound that 60 million people have been waiting on for a month. Didier Deschamps had not managed a competitive game for two years and so has had to pick and finesse his best team from a standing start.

The tournament did not start well, as Deschamps got his selection wrong from the start for all of France’s first four games. France went into half-time at 0-0 for their group matches and 1-0 down against Ireland in the last sixteen. Deschamps was desperate to find a system that got the best out of Paul Pogba, Dimitri Payet and Antoine Griezmann at the same time. That job proved harder than it sounds.

Last week in Lyon France were heading home from their own party, 1-0 down to the Republic and with no fluency or imagination on the pitch. That was when Deschamps finally made the sacrifice that has freed up his team, removing a cog from his machine that has sped everyone else up.

Deschamps finally decided to do without a holding midfielder, as N’golo Kante was taken off for Kingsley Coman, and the team opened out into a 4-2-3-1, with Griezmann playing just off Olivier Giroud. That was the combination that France had been looking for, and with Griezmann in a role close to the one that he plays for Atletico Madrid, he scored the two goals that sent France through.

Here then, against not very different opposition, Deschamps took the same risk. No holding midfielder, trusting Pogba and Blaise Matuidi to shield the defence, with Griezmann close to Giroud and this time Moussa Sissoko rather than Coman to provide the width.

For the first time this tournament, the system worked perfectly from the start. Pogba had enough room in midfield to dictate play, without Payet, who floated all over, treading on his toes. Griezmann could play off the target man and run in behind, as he does for his club alongside Fernando Torres..

That story is there in how France blew away a well-organised Icelandic defence. The second goal, tellingly, came from Pogba’s perfect long ball to Griezmann, each man revelling in his role. Griezmann won a corner, Pogba headed it in.

Griezmann’s proximity to Grioud helped make the third, as he set up the chance which Payet curled into the far bottom corner. Then the fourth came from another Griezmann run and another direct Pogba pass, which Giroud cleverly stepped over in the middle of the pitch.

Finally, then, after four swings and misses, Deschamps has struck onto how to get the best out of Griezmann and Pogba at the same time. He has landed on a system that works and that his players understand and enjoy.

France now have three days off before they face Germany in Marseille and there will be one question on Deschamps’ mind. Does he stick with this system, as he sets about a world champion side who still show flashes of fragility from time to time? Or does the threat of Mesut Ozil, Julian Draxler and Thomas Muller mean he should bring Kante back in and go to a 4-3-3 which will help to secure the middle of the pitch?

The conservative option must be tempting, but then Deschamps will also know that without Sami Khedira, Mario Gomez or Mats Hummels, this Germany team will never be weaker than this week. Having worked so hard to find the right combination, ripping this one up is no guarantee of landing on another one that works as well.