I actually missed most of the 98 WC because a project I was on went insane and we were working 90 hour weeks lol. Bummer.
Not even sure England should be faves. The Italian MF bothers me quite a lot.
Still have my pre tourney bet on them at 9.0
I wouldnāt be really worried about the mf too much. Italy could very well win. But I really like Mount against Jorginho. Maybe the best player in the world to harass him and not let Italy control the tempo. Spinazolla is a huge miss. You have to be confident you will get at least 1 goal from Kane/Sterling/Saka or even a set piece. Then, youāve only conceded one all tournament. Are you really going to let Chiesa/Immobile/Insigne get 2? Itās possible, but unlikely.
I think a lot will come down to fitness levels now.
Thatās another thing in Englandās favour imo. If itās another 1-1 match, England is bringing on Grealish, Sancho, Rashford in extra time. Italyās best attacking sub is Berardi, a player who wouldnāt get a sniff of this English squad.
Henderson especially.
I thought Phillips was beginning to look leggy against Denmark.
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Everyone knows Platini. '86 was the first WC I saw, so I caught him towards the end of his career.
I donāt know about your rugby theory. I guess itās possible.
And the part about recognizing the talents of their black players is more or less exactly what Aofrantic said.
While weāre on the topic, how about Spain? Why were they basically useless until the '00s.
Yes itās possible that a nation of football, cricket and rugby fans might know which ball sports neighbouring countries specialise in historically, but you didnāt have to be European to get the whole narrative that France had won the World Cup in a sport they werenāt even that interested in.
Lack of alternative ball sports is also why Italy and Germany have been so strong in football (not really counting Italian rugby), to answer the question posed earlier.
Spain werenāt as useless as you make out, or as might appear from their results. They had very good teams that were famous for perennial underachievement. The expectation that one day they were bound to succeed given the talent they had became a weight on their shoulders but eventually they overcame it.
I donāt buy the rugby theory. Itās popular in some areas (mostly the south), but very regional. Only ever saw it on TV or talked about when in the cities with teams like Clermont or Montpellier. And France has never been elite at rugby or even that close, which would be the case if it were really popular.
The racial theory holds far more weight, black-blanc-beur was a big thing in 98 bc the national team finally had more racial integration and were utilizing their full talent pool.
Good for you.
Iāll tend to believe the French people I worked with, mainly from Paris, when it comes to matters about their own country.
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Ok, you do you. You know some French people, impressive.
I lived there for 2 years in Lyon, Nice, and Lille and have several good friends in each city (none like rugby). I honestly did not even see it mentioned a single time in like a year and a half in Lyon. I didnāt even realize it was much of a thing until I visited Clermont-Ferrand, where itās big.
On top of that, there probably isnāt much overlap among the athletes who would choose rugby and football anyway.
I donāt think theyāre as mad about sports as other countries, but rugby was the main bone of contention between them and my UK colleagues (Iām not a rugby fan), and never football.
Iāve enjoyed watching the Spanish throughout the years, theāve had some amazing teams tbh that just seemed to fail at the wrong moment or be so bad at spot kicks that Iād never bet on them ever in a Semi finals 
They definitely deserved more titles than any European team apart from maybe Germany imo. Great team tbh, but yeah how the past failures hung on there heads showed up regularly in knockout rounds.
Yes, I think I mentioned before I was at the England v Spain knockout game in 96 and England rode their luck in that.
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Thereās also this:
āThere are 1,737 clubs in France and the number of licensed players has significantly increased over the recent years, reaching 390,000 in 2010 (up from 260,000 in 2000).ā
So it grew 50% after football had already reached the pinnacle and it had absolutely zero impact on French football.
Weird that rugby which was already huge in France according to you and a couple work buddies could expand even more and not have any impact on football.
āA coupleā.
It was at the UK HQ of a big French car manufacturer here, so make that hundreds.
I could buy this argument, that the French are simply not as sports mad as their neighbors. Just donāt think rugby has anything to do with it though. Also think the integration of all communities played a massive role.
Kinda like how in the USA, there are almost no Hispanic players when really they should make up a pretty sizable portion based on size and their interest in football.
Historically the French have been more involved in Rugby than football and football only became popular around the 90ās after MPā¦
This is also trueā¦
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Our Scottish teams have always faired well against the French and as weāre what 1/10 or less than the size of France it seems impressive until we remind ourselves that apart from maybe the biggest club at that moment weād beat most and have done so throughout the years, ffs they cheated our city rivals out a CL win, but Iāll forgive them for that all told.
And thatās enough proof for anyone to realise that football just wasnāt there gig and still really isnāt.