Fellaini miscast as Umtiti becomes unexpected hero among list of likely suspects

IN ST PETERSBURG

A GAME this good, with players this good, is a bit like the early stages of one of those Agatha Christie murder mystery ensembles.

Who’s going to wield the deadly weapon? At first you start to suspect one or two of the main characters, but as the plot unfolds, you realise you haven’t the faintest idea.

There’s the dashing Mr De Bruyne, charming and yet with a latent menace.

There’s Mr Pogba, scheming away, in cahoots with his friend Mr Mbappe.

There’s Dr Hazard, lurching diabolically towards the byline.

There’s Reverend Lukaku, looking suspiciously quiet.

Then there’s Professor Griezmann, Colonel Matuidi, Miss Giroud. Christ, this could be anybody. They’re all just so… capable.

But nobody suspected Mr Umtiti, in the six-yard-box, with the flicked header.

And in many ways, it was the best twist of a game that defied any attempt to characterise it.

It was a game of abundant attacking players settled by a single goal by a defender from a set-piece.

It was a meeting of two of the tournament’s best defences in which the two goalkeepers were somehow the stars of the show.

It was a game that saw wave after wave of French counterattacks, but where the decisive play came from a slow move built up from the back.

Where a Belgium team assembled to soak up pressure and hit on the break ended up doing almost the exact opposite.

A game featuring a billion euros’ worth of talent, and yet which saw Marouane Fellaini (right) playing on the left wing for almost half its duration.

Yes, in a sense the story of Fellaini was the story of Belgium’s night.

Which is not to blame him or single him out for their World Cup exit, but merely that he seemed to epitomise a Belgium strategy that began to lose its way towards the end of the end of the first half, and simply started lurching itself at France in the hope that something would stick.

And that the dilemma of how best to exploit Fellaini’s many attributes in many ways mirrors Belgium’s: a varied and unique cocktail of skills and competencies that are as easily misused as used. What sort of a player is Fellaini, anyway? Managers have withered on the vine trying to work that question out, and even within this match Roberto Martinez seemed undecided.

He began at the tip of a threeman midfield ahead of Mousa Dembele and Axel Witsel, and for a while almost began to play like a regular midfielder: laying the ball off intelligently, playing some good passes in tight spots, even trying a little cheeky flick to lay the ball off to Eden Hazard.

But alas, this Marouane had not long to live. Towards the end of the first half, Martinez decided to unleash Evil Marouane: pushing him out towards the left wing, with the brief of sneaking towards the back post – insofar as Fellaini can sneak anywhere – and getting on the end of De Bruyne’s inswinging crosses.