To watch the French national team is to watch one of the finest collections of soccer talent the global game has to offer. The defending World Cup champions won a 2018 tournament full of drama, and forward Kylian Mbappé fully announced his presence as one of the most dynamic attackers in the world.
The last several years have brought some change within Les Bleus. After nearly six years of being banned for his alleged involvement in a blackmail scandal against a teammate, striker Karim Benzema was reintroduced for the 2020 European Championship. But the French faltered even with the added attacking expertise, imploding in the final 10 minutes to eventually lose on spot kicks to Switzerland in the round of 16.
France mostly breezed through a relatively lightweight qualifying group. Some hiccups in the UEFA Nations League (losses to Denmark and Croatia) may provide some reason to worry, and a potential reported rift Mbappé and Paul Pogba was played down and has subsided. Defending champions have gone out in the group stage in four of the last five men’s World Cups. But the overall sentiment remains: Even with only 11 of the players who won it all four years ago making the trip to Qatar, if this group can jell as well as it did in Russia, it’ll be just as fierce of a contender in Qatar.
