FIFA World Cup 2026: France Preview – How Can Didier Deschamps Fit Europe’s Most Dangerous Attack Into One Team

Didier Deschamps has spent the months leading up to the 2026 World Cup wrestling with a problem most international managers would envy. The France coach — who led Les Bleus to World Cup glory in 2018 and to the final again in 2022 — named his very last tournament squad in May ahead of his planned departure after 14 years in charge.

While questions remained across the pitch, the most fiercely debated decisions centred on France’s extraordinary attacking depth.

With 11 French players in Europe’s top five leagues each directly involved in more than 20 goals across all competitions this season — including two of the three highest totals overall — Deschamps faced some genuinely difficult selection calls. Both in terms of who should make the squad in the first place, and who should start the group opener against Senegal.

Mbappé and Olise: The Nailed-On Starters

Two names are surely certain to start: Michael Olise and Kylian Mbappé — both of whom recorded 48 goal involvements for their clubs in all competitions in 2025-26. Only Harry Kane (68) bettered that tally. The French pair narrowly outperformed Erling Haaland (47).

Mbappé finished as La Liga’s top scorer for the second successive season, becoming only the third player to win the award in each of his first two seasons in the competition.

Olise arrived at the tournament having scored a hat-trick against Northern Ireland in France’s final warm-up — becoming only the third player in the 21st century to score at least three goals in a single senior France men’s game, after Olivier Giroud (vs Paraguay) and Mbappé himself (vs Kazakhstan, Argentina, and Gibraltar).

Dembélé: The Most Consistent Attacker in Europe

France’s attacking strength extends well beyond those two. Mbappé and Olise ranked alongside PSG striker Ousmane Dembélé as Europe’s most consistent attacking players throughout the season.

Dembélé produced one goal involvement every 71 minutes — the best of the three — across his entire 2025-26 campaign. The combination of these three players in the same squad gives France an attacking trio that no other nation in the tournament can match.

Mateta: The Surprise Selection Who Justifies His Place

Jean-Philippe Mateta was something of a surprise inclusion in Deschamps’ squad — but his numbers vindicate the decision emphatically.

Fresh from scoring in Crystal Palace’s UEFA Conference League final victory, Mateta ranked sixth across Europe’s top competitions for expected goals this season (23.1 xG) and fourth for big chances (47).

But he is more than a penalty-box finisher. Mateta also ranked fifth across Europe’s top five leagues for high pressures in the opposition half (1,230) — the kind of pressing work rate that makes him genuinely valuable to Deschamps’ structure without the ball.

The Supporting Cast: Cherki, Doué, Barcola, Thuram

Behind the headline stars, the depth is genuinely staggering.

Rayan Cherki (Manchester City) is one of Europe’s most productive creators despite playing limited minutes — appearing in just 53% of available game time in 2025-26. He still laid on 16 assists in all competitions at a rate of one every two games. Only Bruno Fernandes could better that assists rate in England’s top flight.

Champions League winners Désiré Doué and Bradley Barcola are also in the squad, along with Inter forward Marcus Thuram, who enjoyed the most productive club season of his career — 18 goals and eight assists in all competitions.

Since the end of Euro 2024, 63% of France’s goals (excluding own goals) have been scored by one of the nine forwards selected in the World Cup squad. The attacking depth is not merely theoretical — it has been consistently delivering.

The Tactical Challenge: Fitting Them All In

The challenge for Deschamps is building a structure capable of accommodating this volume of attacking talent without sacrificing balance.

He has remained loyal to the 4-2-3-1 that carried France through the previous two World Cups — and has leaned into it even more heavily since Euro 2024.

The formation has provided structural consistency while the attacking talent has done the rest. However, because France have largely faced lower-ranked opposition since Euro 2024 — with the average position of their opponents roughly 39th in the FIFA rankings — it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about how the system will fare against elite opposition.

Comparing the period between the 2022 World Cup and Euro 2024 with the last two years, France’s core tactical metrics have remained virtually unchanged:

One meaningful difference has emerged, however. France’s attacking quality has increasingly pinned opponents deeper. Teams used to at least retain some of the ball in their own box and in the central spaces just outside it. Now France are contesting even those areas. Opponents are now completing significantly fewer passes in their own half — dropping from 246 per match to 194 across the two periods.

The pressure is relentless. The structure has not dramatically changed, but the weight of France’s attacking firepower makes it far more suffocating.

The Final Tournament

Little tactical revolution should be expected from Deschamps in his final tournament. That could be said of many international managers — but especially of one who has spent 14 years placing trust in a system that consistently delivers results over experimentation.

Senegal will be France’s opening opponent — a nation eager to recreate the shock of their 1-0 victory against Les Bleus at the 2002 World Cup. But containing this version of France’s attacking firepower is arguably the most difficult assignment in international football.

Cramming it into one team is precisely the luxury problem Deschamps has spent months trying to solve.

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