This is a generation for whom age and experience don't matter.
It is a selection that prefers to challenge the big nations, to measure up against the biggest, to measure up eye to eye.
In short, Portugal-France is looming and this is good news for the Blues of Hugo Lloris and Kylian Mbappé.
World champions prefer the big ones.
They gave us heatstroke against Hungary while they were really hot against the Germans but there, they liked because they were able to raise their level of play.
VIDEO.
The minute: Paul Pogba lit up France-Germany
It's always the same with them, from a 2018 World Cup to a 2021 Euro. Facing Australia, in the turmoil of Kazan, they had experienced a sluggish success (2-1) before in the same city and with the same overwhelming temperature to stumble Argentina (4-3), the match of the changeover.
They were born into the world facing Lionel Messi and have since kept this ability to transform gala afternoons or evenings, to raise their individual and collective performances.
World champions by eliminating Argentina, Uruguay and Belgium
Since 2018, they have thus missed few major meetings, started in 2016 by this semi-final won against a Germany stronger than today, just world champion at the time.
They lost to the Netherlands in the League of Nations but they beat Portugal, Croatia and even Germany at home, serious candidates in recent years in international competitions.
Not to mention that when you are world champions, leaving Argentina, Uruguay and Belgium in particular, you cannot speak of a course on the cheap.
To read also Euro 2021: "You will be on the ground with us", the strong message of Griezmann after the package of Dembélé
To compose his lists and even more his starting XI, Didier Deschamps likes players participating in the Champions League. In defense, the hinge Raphaël Varane - Presnel Kimpembe played in the semi-finals just like the attacking duo Karim Benzema - Kylian Mbappé, the midfielder N'Golo Kanté is European champion with Chelsea. When an International asks the coach for a transfer window, DD tells them that playing the C1 remains an undeniable advantage in their choice of destination.
The boss of the A then hopes to recover a group that struggles with the daily pressure of the huge meetings of European jousting.
No wonder they have the aptitude and attitude then to show concentration and abnegation in front of the big ones.
However, they do not maintain this requirement against the supposedly weaker, making unexplained errors like Benjamin Pavard on the Hungarian goal.
The attitude never seems the same when the balance of power promises to be unbalanced and an annoyance - Saturday the heat - comes to redraw the duel.
They like to play against the "big guys"
Not sure of finishing at the top of the group, the Blues can fear a good poster in the round of 16. Not to fear, to hope. They want big names, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, England to rub shoulders with what they consider to be their equivalents, their “worthy” adversaries. It is that there is another pleasure for them during the large posters: they can leave the balloon, to proceed in cons, by fast attacks, their plan A which they often unfold wonderfully.
It is also shaped for Karim Benzema even if for the moment, it has not been seen, at least statistically speaking. They accept these fights all the more because they do not take charge of the organization or the control of the game. It is their way of relieving the pressure, of alleviating the atmosphere. For them, the big story begins again Wednesday with Portugal, while waiting as hard for the continuation. It is their Euro which depends on it.
