France are the team to beat at the World Cup, but the hard part starts now

Five games into this World Cup, no team has looked more like a winner than France. Fourteen goals scored, two conceded, five wins out of five, and a group that contained Senegal and Norway waved through without much fuss. They are the side everyone else is quietly measuring themselves against. Which, if you have watched France at tournaments before, is usually the point where you start to feel nervous on their behalf.

The numbers make the case

Start with the results, because they are hard to argue with. France beat Senegal 3-1, brushed past Iraq 3-0 and put four past Norway in the group, then handled Sweden 3-0 in the round of 32 before edging Paraguay 1-0 in the last 16. Kylian Mbappe has seven goals to his name, and the defence has given up just two in five matches, both back in the group stage. Two knockout games, two clean sheets. No other side left in the draw has paired that much firepower with that little trouble at the back.

On balance of play, France have been the most complete team in North America. They can win ugly and they can win comfortably, they have goals spread across the front line, and they have the kind of squad depth that lets them change a game from the bench. If you were picking a favourite on current form, it would be them, and it would not be close.

But the Paraguay game was a warning

Here is what nags at me. The 1-0 over Paraguay was a slog. France had the ball, the territory and the better players, and still could not force the door open until Mbappe converted a penalty midway through the second half. That is knockout football in a sentence. The chances dry up, the opponent sits ten men behind the ball, and a match you should win comfortably comes down to a single moment.

France have the talent to survive those nights. They also have the recent scars to prove they do not always. Cast back to 2022, when they reached the final, watched Mbappe score a hat-trick on the biggest stage of all, and still lost to Argentina on penalties. That side was arguably stronger than this one, and it came down to a shootout. The lesson France keep learning the hard way is that being the better team over 90 minutes settles nothing once the margins shrink.

The quarter-final is where it gets real

Now the draw stops being kind. Morocco stand in the way on Thursday, the same Morocco who reached the semi-finals four years ago and have made a habit of dragging fancied teams into exactly the kind of tight, physical night France found so awkward against Paraguay. Losing Ismael Saibari to injury hurts them, but it does not make them harmless. Get past that and the road only steepens, with the winner of Spain and Belgium potentially next and Argentina waiting on the far side of the bracket.

I would still make France favourites to lift the trophy. The talent is there, Mbappe is in the form of his life, and no one else has strung together five performances this convincing. But favourite is a label France have carried before, and it has a habit of not surviving contact with the knockout rounds. They have done everything asked of them so far. The only thing left to prove is the one thing that has tripped them up before, that they can win the games where being the best team on the pitch simply is not enough.

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