England – France, World Cup Prediction

👏 France’s attack is something exceptional

France logically won against Poland easily. At certain moments it was as if the Poles had just said to Mbappe – “Let him do what he wants, we can’t stop him” and they didn’t. Mbappe outright swept them at the end of the game. I’m also impressed with the performances of Hugo Loris, who is keeping a pretty high level unlike his last few years at Tottenham. Mbappe’s role also helps Olivier Giroud immensely, who needs very little to score.

🔝England have never been as balanced a team as they are at the moment

England played their game against Senegal not as a game against a serious opponent in the World Cup round of 16, but as a tedious group qualifier against Albania for a major forum, with the game ending 3-0, simply because it made no sense for England to expend any more energy. They simply took advantage of Senegal’s naive mistakes which erased all the positives for the team so far. The Three Lions, however, currently possess iron discipline and combined with some phenomenal talents like Bellingham, Saka and Foden, for example, make England a huge favourite to win the World Cup, especially if they eliminate France.

France is a slight favourite, but in this match I’ll also bet on the other team, namely England

I’m pessimistic about Southgate’s decisions. I’m still of the opinion that he’s not getting the most out of this team, but it’s against France that the English can show the world how strong they are right now. I didn’t expect Deschamps to make such a solid midfield line up just with Chouameni, Rabiot and Griezmann. It’s England, though, that will be the big test for this France midfield line, which purely theoretically seems the weak spot if we’re going to look for a weak spot in France at all. England’s diamond is precisely Bellingham. Southgate used Mount early on, but with Henderson + Rice and Bellingham England’s midfield looks even more solid. If the English outplay France there and separately manage to minimize Mbappe’s effectiveness, they might be able to stop the whole French attack and win the clash altogether. That’s what I predict will happen. Prediction – England +0.5 AH at 1.68.