France will need more than Mbappe moments if they’re to retain the World Cup

France got through to the knockout stages of the World Cup without too much difficulty, but things are about to get considerably tougher for them.

If there’s one thing that we can say for certain about the 2022 World Cup so far from a footballing perspective, it’s that there has been very little consistency. No team put in masterful performances in all three group games, while a couple of big hitters may count themselves a little fortunate to have scraped through the group stages at all.

One of the most eyebrow-raising results of the week came in the final match in Group D, when Tunisia beat France 1-0. This wasn’t quite an earthquake-producing result. With France already through to the knockouts, Didier Deschamps played a second-string team with players out of position. Tunisia didn’t qualify as a result of their win and France’s first-choice eleven got a bit of break. No harm done.

But is it really as simple as that? Does a game’s worth of rest really outweigh the disruption of losing? Because it can hardly be said that this match simply ‘didn’t matter’ to France. This much can seen from Deschamps’ decision to introduce Antoine Griezmann, Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Adrien Rabiot and William Saliba during the second half after Tunisia took the lead, while the decision of the Fédération Française de Football to protest over Griezmann’s late equaliser being ruled out after the final whistle had blown also implies that losing matter to them.

And if the Tunisia result demonstrated anything at all, it was that while France have an outstanding first eleven, they lack strength in depth. A couple of injuries to key players could set them quite a long way off course, and with the draw for the knockout stages having not been particularly kind to them beyond the second round, the quality of their bench will only become more important as the tournament progresses.

Is it merely wishful thinking to be looking for fallibility in this France team? After all, their win against Australia was one of the more one-sided of the tournament so far and European Championship semi-finalists Denmark were navigated well enough.

Despite the pre-tournament injuries to Karim Benzema and Paul Pogba, their attacking options remain glorious. Mbappe is one of the very few footballers on the planet who seems to play the game on a different plane to just about everybody else, while Griezmann remains a reliable foil and Olivier Giroud cannot be…