Can France follow up their World Cup Triumph by winning the European Championship?

France come into Euro 2020 as World Champions, but can they add the elusive European Championship to go with it after 2016 heartache.

France are heading into Euro 2020 as the favourites and it isn’t difficult to see why this would be the case.

The World Cup in 2018 was a huge win for Les Bleus as they swept aside Croatia in the final 4-2 as well as the likes of Argentina and Belgium on the way with the likes of Kylian Mbappe bursting onto the international stage.

Everybody knows about France’s squad depth, they are absolutely stacked in every position with talent and this is why they are the overriding favourites to win the whole competition.

Didier Deschamps side had a pretty comfortable time throughout qualification finishing top of the group with 25 points out of a possible 30, only having trouble against Turkey where they were beaten away and could only draw at home.

Other than that, it was pretty plain sailing with results such as a 3-0 win over Andorra, a 4-1 win over Albania and a 4-0 win over Iceland, managing to win eight out of their 10 games in qualification.

Olivier Giroud led the scoring charts for France throughout qualification but he will not be guaranteed a starting spot with Karim Benzema returning to the squad for the first time since 2015.

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However the Real Madrid striker picked up an injury on Tuesday night with Didier Deschamps waiting to hear how bad the injury is. France will be looking to the likes of Antonie Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe as well as Giroud for the goals should the forward be unavailable for Euro 2020.

Midfielder N’golo Kante is going into the tournament after a strong end to the season which saw him pick up numerous man of the match awards in the Champions League, including in the final where Chelsea defeated Manchester City 1-0.

Despite topping their group in qualification, they have been handed the so-called ‘group of death’ in Group F which contains the World Champions along with Germany, Portugal and Hungary.

This is by far the most difficult group that they could have been handed, Germany were World Cup winners back in 2014 and Portugal beat France in Euro 2016, and yet they are a much stronger team from then.

It would be expected that France will have no problems against Hungary but will have to be careful when facing both Germany and Portugal with both teams having threats of their own.

The likes of Serge Gnabry and Leroy Sane for Germany along with Bruno Fernandes and Cristiano Ronaldo for Portugal are just the beginning of the problem that faces France but Les Bleus will be confident that they have a squad more than capable of getting out of the group.

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