France
France are a UEFA national team and two-time World Cup winners in 1998 and 2018, currently ranked among the top three nations in the world with a squad built around Kylian Mbappe.
The 1998 World Cup was won on home soil at the Stade de France on July 12, in Saint-Denis. Zinedine Zidane scored with two headers from corners in the first half against Brazil. Emmanuel Petit added a third in stoppage time. The final score was 3-0. The team that Aime Jacquet had assembled reflected the France that existed off the pitch: multiracial, multi-generational, technically excellent. Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, was carried through Paris on a bus and projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. The phrase “black, blanc, beur” was used to describe both the squad composition and a moment of national cohesion.
The 2018 title in Russia was won differently. Didier Deschamps’s France were not beautiful. They were efficient, physical, tactically suffocating, and possessed of the most lethal counter-attack in the tournament. Kylian Mbappe, at 19, scored twice in the final against Croatia, becoming the second teenager to score in a World Cup final after Pele. The 4-2 win in Moscow was France’s most complete final performance since 1998.
The 2022 final in Qatar was the best World Cup final since 1970. France came from 2-0 down to draw 2-2, then 3-3 after extra time, Mbappe scoring a hat-trick. They lost the penalty shootout to Argentina. The performance, particularly in the second half, confirmed that this France generation could be as consequential as 1998’s.
Mbappe is now at Real Madrid and approaching his peak years. Antoine Griezmann, despite retiring from the national team in 2024, had been the creative glue. His replacement is Antoine Griezmann’s absence, and the candidates to fill that role, including Marcus Thuram and Ousmane Dembele, are talents in different modes. Aurelien Tchouameni and Eduardo Camavinga anchor a midfield that is physically exceptional. The defensive unit includes Jules Kounde and William Saliba, who are among the best centre-backs in Europe.
Deschamps, or his successor, faces the challenge that always faces France: making individually brilliant players function as a collective system. When they do, no team in the world is better.
Paris is in the CET timezone (UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer). For fans in France, US-hosted matches kick off between midnight and 03:00 local time, a schedule that French football culture has learned to accommodate with sufficient café access.