The massive second that we have all been ready for is sort of right here: England play France within the World Cup quarter-final in a few hours.
England are hoping to safe a spot in what can be their second successive World Cup semi-final and their fourth total. However to take action, they should beat holders France. This is able to imply doing one thing that they have not in 72 years: win a knockout tie towards one other so-called ‘large nation’ in a serious finals away from Wembley.
However England will take coronary heart from their performances to this point within the World Cup. They had been dominant of their 3-0 wins over Senegal and Wales, and dazzled of their opener with a 6-2 victory over Iran. The 0-0 draw with the USA of their second group sport was reasonably underwhelming, however that appears to have simply been a blip.
The most important threat to their possibilities is France ahead, Kylian Mbappe, who is without doubt one of the greatest gamers on this planet and has been in nice kind within the event to this point. England right-back Kyle Walker, who’s more likely to be tasked with preserving the PSG man at bay, has stated that he won’t “roll out the purple carpet” for his opponent, including that “he isn’t going to face in my method of, hopefully, successful a World Cup for my nation.”
Mbappe has scored 5 objectives as a part of a France staff which has carried out properly. They picked aside Poland comparatively simply within the Spherical of 16, beating them 3-1. They had been additionally robust of their 4-1 and 2-1 wins over Australia and Denmark within the group stage, earlier than they misplaced 1-0 to Tunisia of their remaining group sport.
The France squad boasts loads of different expertise, too. Striker Olivier Giroud turned France’s prime scorer final outing and has scored three to this point this event. Adrien Rabiot, Antoine Greizmann and Ousmane Dembele can all be threatening, while Raphael Varane is stable in defence.