For nearly 20 years, France and its Swiss counterpart have often crossed swords in the final phase of a European Championship or a World Cup.
But for the first time, the meeting scheduled this Monday evening (9 p.m.) in Bucharest comes as part of a knockout match.
The Blues often show themselves to their advantage against the Nati against which they remain undefeated since 1992. But the confrontations between the two teams have often been quite closed with the notable exception of the brilliant success of the French at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil ( 5-2).
Here are some benchmarks in figures before this duel between neighbors.
2004.
After 32 friendlies between 1905 and 2003, the first competitive meeting between the two countries coincided with the last group match of Euro 2004, when Jacques Santini's France defeated Köbi Kuhn's Switzerland (3- 1).
6.
France achieved a clear round in its six round of 16 major tournaments, including five in the World Cup (against Italy in 1986, Paraguay in 1998, Spain in 2006, Nigeria in 2014 and Argentina in 2018), in addition to their victory at Euro 2016 against Ireland.
2.
For the second time in its history, France will play a match at the National Arena in Bucharest, where it had conceded a 0-0 draw in qualifying for Euro 2012 in September 2011. Its record in this country is therefore with 1 win, 2 draws and 2 losses, all these matches were played against Romania.
19.
The last defeat in competition for the Blues dates from June 2019, in a qualifying match for Euro 2021 against Turkey (2-0).
Since then, they have played 19 games, won 14 wins and drawn 5.
They are, moreover, undefeated in ten matches of the final phase (7 victories) since the final of Euro 2016. This is for the French team its best series since the period 1994-1999 (27 matches) .
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34.
France are unbeaten in the 34 matches in which Antoine Griezmann scored.
The match against Hungary on June 19 was only the fourth where the Barcelona striker found the opening without seeing his team win (1-1).
29.
Hugo Lloris will overtake, this Monday evening, Thierry Henry in the number of matches played in the final phase of the World Cup and the Euro.
Both are at 28. Lilian Thuram holds the record with 32. A mark that the French captain could equal if the Blues go to the final.
1.
This is a statistic that is not necessarily engaging. The Blues do not seem inspired on a penalty against the Swiss. They got four, but only Raymond Kopa scored his (in 1955). Paul Nicolas (1923), Yannick Stopyra (1986) and more recently Karim Benzema in the first round of the 2014 World Cup (5-2) failed in their attempt.