The 21 players who guided France to a World Cup victory, ranked and appreciated

Most rankings include insults or detractors of some sort. For France, we do not have one. Every player in the winning team of the World Cup deserves praise, and they will get it here. It's one of the deepest teams to have ever competed at a World Cup, and the only bad thing that can be said about the Blue Bench, it's that they were not as good as the superstars in front of them. 19659002] Without further ado, here is what each player from France brought:

NR: Adil Rami, Alphonse Areola

Only two French players did not see the pitch during their campaign, their fourth center and third goalkeeper. Rami was a strong starter in Europe for 12 years and Areola had great performances for Paris Saint-Germain last season. They would probably have done well if they were called.

21. Florian Thauvin

A last place finish is hard on Thauvin, who was a substitute for the 89th minute in a game. After a great season of 26 goals for Marseille, just about any team in the tournament would have been delighted to have it. It was only remembered by the relentless brilliance of Kylian Mbappe.

20. Benjamin Mendy

Theo Hernandez beat him for the left starting position simply because the injury prevented him from playing regularly for Manchester City last season, but Mendy will be an important player for France in the future. He could have been a backup defender, but he is a first-choice and dominates the game.

Photo Matthias Hangst / Getty Images

19. Thomas Lemar

Lemar has never really had the opportunity to shine because of his manager's philosophy. The very offensive option Ousmane Dembele started the opening, while Blaise Matuidi and Corentin Tolisso started the matches where Didier Deschamps wanted a defensive left wing. But Lemar offers an excellent compromise option, with a defensive work rate and ball retention, but also a lot of technique and creativity. Expect to see more of him at Euro 2020.

With France having clinched a place in the knockout stages before their last group stage match, Mandanda took the start against Denmark and has kept a blank sheet. He had a scary moment on a Christian Eriksen free kick, but recovered brilliantly to smother the ball, and never looked under threat otherwise.

17. Djibril Sidibe

Sidibe showed how reliable he was when laundering Denmark. He was beaten by Benjamin Pavard by the narrowest margin, and there would have been no fall should he enter the starting lineup.

16. Presnel Kimpembe

Of all the players who missed a starting point simply because the player in front of them looks slightly better, Kimpembe is the most impressive. He's pioneered a work-out with PSG despite the fact that the club has bought the three most expensive central defenders in history, and he watched Samuel Umtiti's level at his beginning. That any country has Kimpembe as a safeguard is absurd. The player behind him, Aymeric Laporte, is likely to leave for Manchester City next season. This team is breathtaking.

15. Ousmane Dembele

The bench player who can feel most upset at not having enough time to shine is Dembele, a dribbling genius who does not even know which of his feet is the strongest. Even though it worked and it was finally justified, Deschamps' decision to play a defensive end in front of Dembele robbed us of what could have been a great team of all time. I hope we can see Dembele and Mbappe at the same time in the future.

14. Nabil Fekir

I will post here a very long soundtrack of Nabil Fekir, because I have the impression that people who do not follow Lyon closely do not understand how much this guy is good. It's a genius. Please take a little of your busy day to watch this man work.

Whenever he came in as a substitute, he had at least one contact that left you wondering what he could do if he had 90 minutes to play with defenders.

13. Corentin Tolisso

Some worry that France could lose defensively and in transition when Blaise Matuidi will be suspended for the quarter-finals. Tolisso entered his role, tied, and made the right flank of Nahitan Nández and Martin Cáceres completely ineffective. Although he is a good enough player that he deserves to be consistent in midfield, the biggest advantage of Tolisso for France is Bayern Munich, probably a Swiss Army Knife, capable of playing anywhere from the field. [19659025] 12. Steven Nzonzi

N & # 39; Golo Kante received a dubious yellow card in the first half of the final, and he threatened to derail the World Cup of France. Their superstar, defensive midfielder simply was not so aggressive after that. Deschamps' decision to remove Kante from Nzonzi was certainly controversial, but it turned out to be right. With a more aggressive defensive midfielder on the ground, Croatia stopped controlling the match. Five minutes later, France had a third goal and total control of the final.

Nzonzi also stopped other meetings. Whenever he entered a match, it seemed that the other team was frustrated in attack from that moment on. He is often a one-man midfielder for Sevilla and is perfect as an under-defender of his country.

11. Lucas Hernandez

That Hernandez be so low is simply a testament to the players around him. They did not leave him much work to do. But he rarely put a foot wrong and made a great contribution in the future, counting two passes. He was perhaps the starter of France that the fans have the least noticed, which tells you that he was not making any mistakes.

10. Antoine Griezmann

It was, without a doubt, a disappointing World Cup for Griezmann. He did not pull the same applause as the players around him. He also finished with four goals and two assists, and did a tireless defensive job. He pressed and made simple passes so that Mbappe and Pogba could shine. A player of his caliber, with his references, would be justified in demanding to play in a team that meets his skills. But it was worse for the benefit of the team.

Look, maybe you think that Olivier Giroud is bad. Maybe you are angry that he did the starting lineup at the expense of a more exciting player like Dembele or Fekir. But you can not tell me that this man is not doing something important for France. Their ability to throw the ball on his giant head as Plan B was undeniably crucial to their success. France did not want to risk returning the ball to Luka Modric in a dangerous area, so they simply bypassed it, and it worked!

8. Blaise Matuidi

Blaise Matuidi is one of the best defensive midfielders in the world, and by playing it on the left wing, Deschamps has committed two separate crimes against football. One, that he asked a player as good as Matuidi so bad out of position. Two, that he played a very defensive player off instead of an entertaining winger. But Matuidi, as he did in all situations of his career, worked his ass to make a positive contribution to the team in this position.

Even though it is completely absurd that he is asked to do so, he beat the defenders to the line and made several good moves with his left foot. He did smart late runs in the box a few times. He did these things in addition to the defensive tasks that he was asked to do. He seemed moved to the left in France's first games, then seemed completely at home at the end of the tournament.

If you asked him to play the goalkeeper, he would be decent in September. I bet he could learn to repair cars in three weeks. Blaise Matuidi kicks ass.

7. Benjamin Pavard

Pavard has been solid all around this World Cup. He was virtually unknown to everyone except Stuttgart fans and full nerds before this World Cup, and he achieved an excellent defensive performance.

But you care about the goal, so we'll show the goal. Let's all look at the goal again. Shit, man.

6. Hugo Lloris

OK, so, Lloris is an absolute madman. Sometimes he goes wild and does things like that.

Up to this howler, Lloris was in the running to win the Golden Gloves; in the end, this prize was awarded to the Belgian Thibaut Courtois. But the spectacular jumps of Lloris more than compensate for the moments of the bonehead. All games in France's knockout phase were tight, and Lloris was asked to make big saves to keep his team ahead or fail in any case.

Lloris is about to pass his manager Didier Deschamps and he will soon overtake Zinedine Zidane and Patrick Vieira. If he is the first starter from France at the next World Cup, he will pass Lilian Thuram for first place. He may be the only regular star of the old generation not to be blamed for his failures, and Mandanda and he deserve to be the only two to succeed in this team, for the moment.

Samuel Umtiti

There was a moment in the career of Umtiti where many people thought that he was going away. At 6 "in the posts at a good day, it's a bit undersized for a center-back. It has some highs, but still has very average air capacity. And yet, Umtiti has emerged as a world-class central defender, and probably more critical for his club team these days than his defensive partner, Gerard Pique.

For France, he's so dependable that Kimpembe and Laporte will not be honest about it He anticipates the games before they happen and rarely has to make a tackle.His combination of intelligence and speed means that he just beats the attackers at the ball. is extremely clean with the ball at his feet.As a tweener back to center left, without too much flaws in his game, he is the closest to Paolo Maldini we've seen since the retirement of the Italian legend. 24 years old, with only two seasons at the highest level to his credit, Umtiti will probably get better.

4. Raphael Varane

Varane has grown in many ways since arriving at Real Madrid. Once a pure athlete who had enough physical talent to cope throughout his career, he became an excellent all-round defender with technical skills and elite intelligence to match his obvious physical gifts. As he improves and some game legends decline, Varane is the best central defender on the planet.

His early game in the first half of the final revolutionized the game, and it was a piece that only Varane could have done. Mario Mandzukic was at the back of the net, but Varane headed in and gave the ball a shot, allowing Hugo Lloris to score. If any other defender was there, Mandzukic arrives at the ball, and he probably throws the ball into the back of the net with his second touch. It would have been 2-2, with Croatia at the top, and we would have had a completely different final.

Respect this man. RESPECT HIM

Photo by Shaun Botterill / Getty Images

Pogba, one of the greatest offensive talents of his generation, is criticized for his lack of goals while playing the restrictive role that José Mourinho asks him to play at Manchester United. He is asked to play an even more defensive role for France. And yet, it is the death of Pogba that has made this French team work, even though it does not have the numbers to support it to prove it. His defensive stance was excellent and allowed Kante to continue the ball anywhere inconsequential. He was the backbone of this team. Anyone who refutes this with "a lucky goal, zero help" is just committed to hating him for no reason.

* lol you know the reason.

2. N & # 39; Golo Kante

It seems that every year of my life, the physical abilities of the average football player have increased significantly. If you watch a clip of Diego Maradona in the 1980s, it looks like the guys he's facing are stuck in the quicksand. It's so different from the modern game that it's hard to believe that it's the same sport. Any good first-division player in 2018 would have been the most athletic guy on the field in the 1986 World Cup final.

And yet, despite everything, there is a player in 2018 who stands up and shoulders above its ability to cover the ground and continue to sprint at maximum speed in the 90th minute of the games. That people say that "Golo Kante" is not a human being, but an extraterrestrial, or perhaps a machine, seems very unfair to someone who is obviously human and who has worked very hard hard to become as good as him. But it is truly breathtaking to see someone in this era of extreme athleticism and athleticism stand out so far from his peers. Which player.

1. Kylian Mbappe

This was the Mbappe World Cup. That is to say that Deschamps built his entire team around the concept of letting this 19-year-old player do everything he wanted while other players needed to adapt a system and sacrifice their own. way to play for the good of the team.

He is a transcendent talent who, although he is probably at five or six years of the heyday of his powers, is already a top five striker on the planet. He is the heir to the throne of Messi and Ronaldo and could pursue supposedly unbreakable records. No one has ever been so good at this young age .

The goal scored by Mbappe in the final is a 200 IQ play. He deceives everyone into thinking he's going to roll the ball to the top corner at the second post. Danijel Subasic, a very good goalkeeper and former teammate of Mbappe, leans heavily on this side. He is then completely jostled when Mbappe drives him down and almost instead.

His best tournament game was one that did not even put him on the box. While Mbappe was excellent in the group stage, the moment he seemed to arrive as a superstar – not just a sensational prospect, but already a star of the already dominant capital – was this race against Argentina [19659061ItwasthemomentwhenJavierMascheranoatruelegendofthegamethatalmostneverletanyonethroughprobablydecidedthathewastoooldforthisshitMarcosRojohasnochoicebuttogiveapenaltyHehadtoadmitthattherewasnothinghecoulddotostopMbappe

When 17-year-old Mbappe was compared favorably to Thierry Henry, there was an instant backlash from from different media to have too much pressure on a young player, too soon. In the end, this comparison could have been a bit conservative. At this tournament, Mbappe looked like Pele in 1958 or Ronaldo, O Fenomeno, in 1998.

And for his team, Mbappe made the difference between the disappointing defeat of France in the final of Euro 2016 and his domination of the 2018 World Cup. His manager piled a huge responsibility on him, and he delivered. Welcome to the Mbappe era.