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Historical rivals, England and France are set to go head-to-head in a major FIFA World Cup quarter-final on Saturday – their first meeting at the tournament for 40 years. It’s a much anticipated fixture between two attacking teams with individual battles expected all over the pitch.
The Three Lions and Les Bleus each eased through the group stages and the last 16, beating Senegal and Poland respectively in the last round to set up a far trickier tie in the next round.
England have impressed in attack across three of their World Cup games in Qatar so far, with 12 goals across those three matches versus Iran, Wales and Senegal, including strikes by Jordan Henderson, Bukayo Saka and Harry Kane in the 3-0 last 16 win over the African champions.
The most talked about contest has been England defender Kyle Walker, going up against France striker Kylian Mbappé, the World Cup’s top scorer with five goals. But Jude Bellingham against Aurelien Tchouameni in the midfield, and Harry Kane against Raphaël Varane, could also be deciding factors in this tie.
Meanwhile, Gareth Southgate is hoping to become the first England manager to go to two World Cup semi-finals, and Kyle Walker – on whom there is plenty of focus ahead of the battle with French star Mbappe – cannot split the two teams.
“We’re playing the world champions, but we are two good teams that will go toe to toe,” the England right-back said. “You’ve seen what can happen in 90-plus minutes.
“There have been shocks and for us this is just another game. We take our hat off to them as world champions, but each and every one of us will not be rolling that red carpet out for them to treat it as a theatre.
“We have great talent – talk about the goals we have scored and the clean sheets that we’ve kept. In my eyes, neither team is the underdogs or the favourites.”
The result of Saturday’s game could come down to how well the respective nations can “contain” the “star qualities” of Kylian Mbappé and Jude Bellingham, said Ben Knapton on SportsMole. We are “struggling to see a way for England to prevail” and can only envisage France “sending the Three Lions home empty-handed again”.
The majority of the French squad “tasted success” in lifting the World Cup four years ago in Russia, while the majority have “also enjoyed success in club football”, said Nathan Evans on Sporting News. That will likely give them the “mental edge” here, “on top of the fact that they have some of the best attacking players in the world at their disposal”.
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