Group: I — France, Senegal, Iraq, Norway

How they Qualified: Won UEFA Group D. France clinched qualification with a 4-0 win over Ukraine, with Kylian Mbappé scoring twice, Michael Olise adding a goal, and Hugo Ekitiké scoring his first for the national team.

Best World Cup Finish: Champions (1998, 2018). France also reached the final in 2006 and 2022.

Transfermarkt Roster Value: $1.84 B

FIFA Rank: 1

Odds to Win Group: -215

Odds to Advance: -5000

Odds to Win Cup: +475

Key Players:

  • Kylian Mbappé — Forward — Real Madrid (Spain). Mbappé is still the central figure. Transfermarkt values him at $235.2m, the highest mark in the France squad, and he already has 12 World Cup goals before turning 28. He won the Golden Boot in 2022, scored a hat trick in the final, and now enters this tournament as captain of a team that may be even deeper than the one that nearly repeated four years ago. If France win the World Cup, the simplest version of the story is probably still Mbappé being the best attacker in the tournament.
  • Michael Olise — Winger — Bayern Munich (Germany). Olise may be the clearest example of how frightening France’s attacking depth has become. Transfermarkt values him at $176.4m. He gives France a left-footed creator from the right side who can slow the game down, beat a defender, deliver the final ball, or come inside and score himself. Mbappé is still the superstar who bends the whole field, Olise is the player who can make France feel impossible to load up against. Double Mbappé, and Olise can punish you from the other side. Keep the shape balanced, and Mbappé gets room. That is the kind of problem only the very best teams can create.
  • William Saliba — Center Back — Arsenal (Premier League). France’s attack gets most of the attention, but Saliba is the player who makes the whole thing feel safe enough to win the tournament. Transfermarkt values him at $117.6m, after he just helped helm a historically good Arsenal defense en route to a Premier League title and Champions League final appearance. In a group with Senegal’s transition threat and Norway’s Haaland problem, France need a center back who can defend space, win duels, and still play out cleanly. Saliba gives them that modern defensive platform.

Playing Style and Outlook

France come in at number two here, but the reality is there is very little separating them from the number one team, but there is a clear top two. France boasts one of the most staggeringly deep and talented attacking groups in World Cup history. Headlined by Kylian Mbappé, the leading scorer in La Liga and the Champions League this season, followed by the reigning Ballon d’Or winner, Ousmane Dembélé, then Michael Olise, who was arguably the best winger in Europe this season where he led the Bundesliga in assists, then Rayan Cherki, second in assists in the Premier League and a fixture on Premier League Best XIs, then Désiré Doué, one of the best young talents in the world, not to mention Bradley Barcola and Marcus Thuram, regular starters for the French and Italian champions. It is an absurd range of attacking profiles and no matter how Didier Deschamps deploys them, multiple exceptional players will be left on the sideline.

The attacking quality can’t be denied, but the defensive back line is also among the best in the tournament. Deschamps will pick two of William Saliba, one half of the dynamic duo that led Arsenal’s historically good defense this season, Ibrahima Konaté of Liverpool and Dayot Upamecano of Bayern Munich. No matter which two of those three anchor the back line, they will have athleticism to spare, as well as immense experience in high intensity, top quality, competition. At the full backs there are more attack minded options like Theo Hernandez and Malo Gusto or more defensively solid options like Jules Koundé. Either way, the back line will be solid and dynamic.

Coming off another strong season at AC Milan, Mike Maignan could be another ace up France’s sleeve in the net. He is certainly capable of standing on his head to turn any single game in their favor.

The midfield composition is the reason I have France slightly below Spain. While Spain boasts arguably the best midfield in the tournament, the French midfield is less settled. They have called in a 35 year-old N’Golo Kanté from semi-retirement at Fenerbahce to help anchor the midfield. The other names that fill out the unit are solid players at good clubs, Tchouaméni, Rabiot, Koné, Zaïre-Emery, but none are among the top midfielders in Europe or the world. If we assume Rayan Cherki will play in an attacking midfield role, then Deschamps only needs to find a reliable duo to pair behind him at the base of the midfield, whether those two can provide enough structure behind the attack to keep matches from becoming transition chaos will be the question of the tournament for France.

If the midfield can hold up, France become a truly haunting opponent with the attacking talent they possess. France have enough talent now that it feels lazy to reduce them to one player, but Mbappé is perhaps the biggest game-breaker in the tournament. Mbappé changes the geometry of every match. Opponents have to drop earlier, cover more space behind the fullback, shade help to his side, and still worry that none of it will matter if he gets one step. The difference in 2026 is that France no longer feel like they need Mbappé to create every dangerous moment.

That depth is the main story. France left out Eduardo Camavinga after an injury-disrupted season, picked Jean-Philippe Mateta over Randal Kolo Muani after Hugo Ekitiké’s Achilles injury, and still have a front line that would be the envy of almost every country in the tournament. The squad includes 10 players from the 2022 World Cup final and three holdovers from the 2018 champions: Mbappé, Lucas Hernández and N’Golo Kanté. That is a ridiculous mix of continuity and renewal.

The tactical question is how aggressive Deschamps wants to be. France can play a 4-2-3-1, a 4-3-3, or slide into a more conservative shape when the match demands it. The temptation is to overload the lineup with attackers. That version could overwhelm teams. But Deschamps has never been a coach who simply throws all the attackers on the field and hopes the talent sorts itself out. The long-running criticism of Deschamps is that his football can be pragmatic and conservative, especially after a Euro 2024 run where France reached the semifinals but often looked labored and dependent on moments rather than rhythm.

That criticism is fair, but it also misses why France are so dangerous in tournaments. Deschamps is not trying to win style points. He is trying to get France to the final weekend, and his record is ridiculous: World Cup winner in 2018, Nations League winner in 2021, World Cup finalist again in 2022. He has already confirmed this will be his final tournament as France coach, which adds a real last-dance quality to the whole thing.

The group is difficult for a top seed. Senegal are one of the strongest African teams in the field, and the opener in New Jersey has obvious 2002 history attached to it, when Senegal stunned defending champion France in the opening match of their first-ever World Cup. Iraq are the weakest team in the group on paper, but they are experienced, emotional, and back at the World Cup for the first time in 40 years. Norway are the real complication. A final group match against Erling Haaland and Martin Ødegaard is not the kind of game most favorites want before the knockouts. Though it will be a treat for fans to see Mbappé and Haaland dueling head to head in a World Cup.

That said, France should still win the group. They have too much speed, too much depth, and too many ways to hurt teams. Against Senegal, they may need to manage transitions and avoid turning the match into a track meet. Against Iraq, they may need patience and set-piece quality against a compact defensive shape. Against Norway, the whole thing may become a fascinating contrast in styles, with France’s defensive depth and attacking speed against the most ruthless striker in the tournament.

The knockout question is whether France can find fluency without losing control. That has been the recurring Deschamps tension. When it works, France look terrifying, compact enough to survive pressure, explosive enough to punish one mistake, and deep enough to change the match off the bench. When it doesn’t, they can look oddly passive for a team with this much talent, waiting for Mbappé or one of the wingers to solve a problem that the system has not solved.

This squad should have fewer excuses than almost any France team under Deschamps. Mbappé is in his prime. Dembélé is coming off the best stretch of his career. Olise and Doué give them new creative layers. Saliba, Konaté and Upamecano are center backs most countries would build around. Tchouaméni, Zaïre-Emery and Koné give the midfield enough athleticism to survive modern tournament games. The bench is absurd.

France can obviously win the World Cup. They can win it because they have the best combination of star power, depth, experience and knockout-game muscle memory in the tournament. In attack and defense this team is arguably better than the 2022 version that lost the final on penalties. Can the midfield glue it all together? That is the question. The concern is that Spain may be cleaner, England may be deeper in midfield, and Argentina may still have the champion’s belief. But if France find even a little attacking rhythm around Mbappé, the rest of the field has a serious problem.

Deschamps has already won the World Cup as a player and a coach. This is his chance to leave with one more final act: three straight World Cup finals, two titles as manager, and a France team that turns a golden generation into something even bigger than 2018.