France beat The Netherlands easily to earn their spot at Euro 2024, which will be held in Germany next summer. It was great news for Real Madrid because one of their own, Aurelién Tchouameni, had one of the best games of the night in a 2-1 win in Amsterdam over a team led by Ronald Koeman, who used to manage Barcelona.

Didier Deschamps still puts Tchouameni at the top of his team sheet as one of the first names, even though he started out as the holding midfielder. He played some part in France’s 20th straight game, and he started 19 of those games. In fact, the last time the French coach left Tchouameni on the bench was in March 2022. That was the only time since his debut in 2021 that he wasn’t used as a replacement.

That’s why Tchouameni put on this show. He was the most active player in the middle of the field, making the most stops and winning the most duels as he regularly stopped the Dutch offense. At halftime, Koeman decided to change things up by changing Atalanta’s Marten de Roon. This was mostly because the team was having trouble in the middle of the field, where Tchouameni stood out.

Tchouameni won four tackles and recovered control nine times. He also got a yellow card for his only foul, which happened late in the game, as France held on to win after Quilindschy Hartman scored a goal that cut the gap created by Kylian Mbappe’s two goals.

He scored a long goal against Ireland during the last international break, which made him feel good about himself. He also helped with the attack. Tchouameni took three shots, two of which were from outside the penalty area. Two of them hit the goal, but one was blocked.