They might have been to a major international tournament final in the not-too-distant past, but a tame start to the Euro 2024 group stage has been enough to start questions of team selection, adventurism and whether they really are among the favourites to triumph in Germany this summer.
Even though they’re still unbeaten after two games, and with the weakest team left to play, the performances haven’t been enough. They haven’t been convincing throughout. They haven’t shown that the best players are playing to their best form, and so there is room for criticism.
A clarification; reading the opening paragraphs, thoughts might turn to England and expecting that it’s written about them.
Except it’s not: that’s the situation facing France so far, World Cup finalists in Qatar but unimpressive in Germany and, let’s be clear, yet to score a goal themselves at the tournament following Austria’s match-winning own goal in their Group D opener.
It’s not a direct comparison. It’s important to note there are clear differences between England and France so far. But their situation is the same, with the possibilities before them also similar. So why is there such a disparity between the anger at the Three Lions and little more than a shrug of the shoulders at Les Bleus’ early struggles?
Some context, then. England’s opponents were Serbia and Denmark, tenacious, aggressive, physical and tactical more than technical rivals. France played an impressive Austria and a Netherlands side who are still skilfull, but in rebuild mode. France’s opponents might be generally seen as better across the board, player for player, but neither have had a manager in place for more than two years, whereas both England’s rivals appointed their bosses prior to that, so are further along their teambuilding path.
Both England and France have unusual stablity in that department, with both Gareth Southgate and Didier Deschamps long-term incumbents of the head coach role for their nations.
And despite that, they both appear to be short on ideas so far in Germany on how to make their teams play to their full potential.
They both have a win and a draw, but where England have at least netted against both their opponents, France have yet to manage that themselves.
On the flip side, they haven’t conceded yet - albeit only thanks to a very dubious offside decision against the Dutch - but England have also only allowed one in, a fairly optimistic strike from range which happened to creep in off the post. Defensively against Serbia they were resolute and very much in control, even if their on-the-ball work hasn’t been as good as they wanted.
England created two [statistically defined] big chances in their opener and four in the next; France managed two in each fixture - and have so far conceded three such chances themselves, to England’s one. Meanwhile, one striker in Harry Kane was mostly missing in one game; another in Kylian Mbappe was forceably absent for the other.
So is it simply down to aesthetics?
Both games were shown on BBC Sport, yet the commentary and analysis around both games was wildly dissimilar. France were still clearly “contenders” and were simply “not clinical”, while England generated an incredible amount of rage for their failings against Denmark, while Southgate was derided as “inept” for a lack of tactical nous.
Naturally there is the factor that from an English-based media perspective, there is going to be more desire, more partisan opinions and more demands for a Three Lions win. But that cannot - or should not - account for such a difference between the two near-identical scenarios.
There appears to be simply an expectation that France will somehow improve.
They’ve been here before, they have a manager at the helm who has seen it all and guided them past such issues, they have a collection of elite talents in the squad, particularly in the attcking half of the pitch.
Yet surely all the same - or nearly - applies to England?
Of course, it must be acknowledged that in France there could be similar discussions going on right now, yet it feels implausible that it would be of a similarly vitriolic nature, that so many former internationals would be queueing up to deride individuals and gameplans with such vigour, all while ignoring the fact their nation still topped the group.
Perhaps Greece’s trophy has a footnote engraved at the bottom that few have seen, remarking that yes, while they won the tournament in 2004, their play was an abomination and any complaints remained fully justified.
If not, perhaps it’s merely the cycle of overreaction and overexpectation firing up again: berate anything and everything which is wrong, as vociferously as possible, ignoring all context and maintaining no balance.
England and France have played to different quality levels, to different speeds, to different amounts of chance creation, possession and starting lineup alterations. But the outcomes, so far, are precisely and entirely the same. Perhaps we should consider it’s not just Southgate who has made a few misjudgements early on this summer?
