France, which team will turn up?

ThisDrinkingLife and The World Cup: France

I really expected France to win the Euros on home soil two years ago. Deschamps had assembled a fantastic squad, with home advantage and Griezmann banging in the goals they got to the final and then it went all a bit flat. Portugal sucker punched them and fair dues for their victory, but I cant help feeling that France let that one go. That’s the thing about the French, be it in rugby or in football, which team will turn up on the day, which team is actually bothered to win the match?

A pretty good Denmark team could seriously cause them problems in the group stage, but otherwise they should dispatch of a poor Australian team and a Peru team who are probably still in shock of actual qualifying. The Denmark game is last of the three, and it really could go either way. To early to call for me. The difference in winning is avoiding a possible Argentinian team in the second round. Or play Iceland/Nigeria/Croatia? A possible semi’s with Germany or Brazil lie in the long grass depending on results.

Overall the team has plenty of top quality players to do the business, and when they click they do put on the flair, and can move from back to front in lightning speed. But losing Dimitri Payet is a big loss, a player who can get the team clicking which Pogba cant do that, or N’Golo Kanté. Griezmann is on hot form though and enjoying his football, while Kylian Mbappe might be the one to fill the void that Payet has left in the team.

Didier Deschamps has surprised me in how well he has done with the French national team, he has got them far considering the mess he had taken over from Blanc and Domenech before him. They play generally good football under him and we dont tend to see any strife that has rocked previous French teams. But it is France and they are hard to predict. Could get to the last eight, but I dont think they have just enough to get past Germany or Brazil.

Was luckily enough to talk to not one but two experts on French football.

First was with Jeremy Smith from the excellent French Football Weekly online magazine and podcast show. Jeremy filled me in all I needed to know about this French football team, their manager, the players I should look out for, and the general chit chat about the state of the game in France.

Second chat was with French author Daniel Ortelli, an expert on all things F1 and French Football, who over a very pleasant half an hour told me how France are going to do in this years World Cup!