All about the France Team at Football World Cup 2018
With the 2018 FIFA World Cup kicking off in Russia this summer, your guide to backing the French team all the way to the finals are here! The competition will start off with 32 national teams, the host team Russia and 31 other teams who have fought their way through the qualification stages to reach the tournament. It all kicks off on the 14th of June 2018 when the hosts, Russia, against Saudi Arabia in the stadium with the highest seating capacity of all the stadiums being used throughout the competition, the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.
Tips for Betting on France in the World Cup 2018
In their last 5 competitive games, France has only been scoreless in their game against Luxembourg, a game which resulted in a nil-nil draw between both sides. They have scored 8 goals in their last 5 competitive matches giving them an average of 1.6 goals per match, but if you remove the outlier of the Luxembourg match, the average amount of goals scored by France per match would be 2, so betting for France to score 2 goals in their first match against Australia could be a safer way to go. With 7 yellow cards in the last 5 competitive games, an average of 1.4 yellow cards per game, you could also safely put a small bet on for France to receive 1 or 2 yellow cards in their first World Cup match against the Aussie side. As well as this, in the last 5 competitive matches, France has also held the majority of possession in all 5 games, even though they lost against Sweden 2-1, proving they are a team who enjoy being in control of possession for each of their games, so possession may be an area where it could be safe to place your bets.
Betting Odds on France to Win the World Cup 2018
France will start of their World Cup campaign on June 16th against Australia at 1pm local time. France has been positioned at the number 1 position in Group C with Australia, Peru, and Denmark, leaving them with very high odds of making it through to the knockout stages of the competition. Being ranked number 9 in the FIFA world rankings, they stand the best chance of making it out of the group stages, at their ease too. They are in the Top 5 most likely to win the World Cup, with odds coming in at around 5-1.
Expected France Lineup at the World Cup
The French team’s prefered systems of play include 4-4-2 and 4-3-3. In the last 5 competitive games, they have lined out in the 4-4-2 system apart from their match against Denmark, where they mixed up their system and played 4-2-3-1, showing us that they are capable of many different formations as they took home a 4-0 win against the Netherlands.
In the last of the World Cup Qualifiers, France faced Belarus with a line up of Lloris in goals, Sidibé, Varane, Umtiti and Digne in defence, Tolisso, Lemar, Coman and Matuidi in midfield, and Giroud and Griezmann up front in forward. Missing from this line up are players such as Pogba and Kanté in midfield, Mbappé and Dembélé if needed, although most would argue that Giroud and Griezmann would hold their starting positions, leaving the others on the bench and with Laurent Koscielny calling time on his international career with France after the 2018 World Cup to focus on his time at Arsenal, it is certain for the 32-year-old defender to appear on a regular basis for Les Blues.
Judging by the previous lineups and the french’s star players, I would expect Lloris to retain his position in goal, Laurent Koscielny, Umtiti, Sibidé and number 3 for France, Kurzawa, to start in defence. Pogba, Kanté, Lemar and either Coman or Dembélé to start in their prefered midfield positions, and to have Giroud and Griezmann starting up forward, with Lacazette, Mbappé and Martial on the bench in case of a replacement for the two strikers. As you can probably guess, I would expect France to line out in their 4-4-2 formation as they are familiar with this formation. They may need to change this formation throughout the tournament to cope with different players and their abilities or if France comes up against a particularly strong team where a change of tactics are needed in order to throw the other team off in their preparations for the game against Les Blues. These changes will all come down to the man in charge, manager Didier Deschamps, who captained France to glory in the 1998 World Cup, giving him the much-needed experience in guiding his national team to victory 20 years later in Russia.
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Antoine Griezmann
The star of the French squad would have to be Antoine Griezmann. The 26-year-old Athletico Madrid forward was Player of the Tournament and top scorer of the UEFA Euro tournament in 2016 where France were runners-up to Portugal, losing 1-0 in the final. Greizmann transferred from Real Sociedad to Athletico Madrid in 2014 for £24 million. In the same year, he was named in Deschamps squad for the 2014 World Cup, kicking off his senior international career, having played on the under 19 and under 21 squads previous.
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Laurent Koscielny
Top class defender Laurent Koscielny also features in the squad. He plays both centre-back for France and his current club in the English Premier League, Arsenal. He was born in 19885 in Tulle, France and played football from an early age. In the summer of 2010, Koscielny joined Arsenal, for a fee of £8.45 million and is now regarded as one of the best players in his position and in the world. He first made an appearance for Les Blues in February 2011 against Brazil.
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Paul Pogba
Paul Pogba is a French 24-year-old midfielder who has been a top player the last few years. He started his career with English top flight team Manchester United in 2011. Then in 2012 he transferred to Juventus where he contributed to the sides 4 consecutive Serie A league titles. He was named in UEFA’s 2015 Team of the Year after he contributed to Juventus making it the UEFA Champions League Final in 2015. Pogba then returned to United for a then world breaking record fee of £89.3 million.
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