Sports Mole compares the France squads that was selected for Euro 2000 and has been picked for Euro 2024.
It has been 24 years since France were last crowned European champions, and after coming close a couple of times under Didier Deschamps, they will feel that this year is their time to end the drought.
Back in 2000, France came into the tournament on the back of being crowned world champions two years earlier on home soil. The squad was largely the same, with the group intent on winning back-to-back tournaments and cementing their place in French football folklore.
It was a stellar squad, featuring a 22-year-old Thierry Henry who had just completed his first season at Arsenal, a 26-year-old Robert Pires who was about to join Arsenal, and a 27-year-old Zinedine Zidane who had won the Ballon d’Or two years prior.
At the heart of midfield, they had Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit, both in their prime, and at the back they had the formidable and experienced duo of Laurent Blanc and Marcel Desailly. The squad was captained by the current manager, Deschamps.
After breezing through their group, France then needed golden goal in the semi-final and the final. It was Zidane who fired them past Portugal in the semis before David Trezerguet became a French hero with his extra-time winner in the final against Italy.
How does the current squad stack up to the Euro 2000 champions?
Then vs. Now
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Mike Maignan has taken over from Hugo Lloris as the French number one after the former Tottenham stopper retired from international football after the 2002 World Cup. The parallels between Maignan and the Euro 2000 goalkeeper, Fabien Barthez, are there for all to see.
Barthez was, in many ways, a trailblazer for the modern-day goalkeeper. He was very comfortable coming out of his penalty area to sweep up danger and was also at ease on the ball. Modern-day goalkeepers have taken this to a whole new level and Maignan is one of the best.
He is also a good shot-stopper, which remains the most important job of a goalkeeper. In Serie A last season, he had a save percentage of 75%.
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Marcel Desailly and Laurent Blanc built a formidable partnership at the back for France during the 1990s, and Euro 2000 was effectively their swansong. Desailly, like Barthez, was a player who would be more than capable of being able to play in the modern game.
He was rapid across the ground, strong in the tackle and astute on the ball. Dayot Upamecano has often been compared to Desailly in that physically he is very similar to the former Chelsea man.
There aren’t many players who get the better of the Bayern Munich defender in a foot race or in a physical duel. However, there are question marks about his ability in possession.
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Antoine Griezmann is the Zidane of the current French team in that they rely on the Atletico Madrid man for creativity. However, he goes about it in a different way to Zidane.
Zidane had everything that you would ever want from a playmaker – one step ahead of his opponents, elegant on the ball, an eye for the right pass, impossible to wrestle off the ball. Griezmann, however, likes to dribble with the ball more, and has a tenacious work-rate that creates space for the likes of Mbappe and Dembele.
Zidane is a complete one-off and arguably the best French player of all time, but Griezmann’s achievements and performances in a blue shirt shouldn’t be underestimated. He was the top scorer at Euro 2016 and was man of the match in the World Cup final two years later, as France won their second Jules Rimet trophy.
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Comparisons between Kylian Mbappe and Thierry Henry have existed since Real Madrid’s new Galactico burst onto the scene at Monaco as a 17-year-old. Of course, it was also Monaco where Henry first made his name before becoming one of the best players on the planet at Arsenal.
Mbappe may never end up playing in the Premier League, but his abilities are clear and the comparisons with Henry in terms of finishing are fair.
One key difference is their ‘trademark’ finish though. While both like coming from the left hand side, Henry’s preference was to open his body up and curl the ball into the far corner. Meanwhile, Mbappe likes to open his body up before wrapping his foot around the ball to drill it into the near corner.
It’s ultimately impossible to call one France squad better than the other with much confidence, though the mere presence of that Desailly-Zidane-Henry spine probably sees the France squad of Y2K shade this one by the slimmest of margins.