The 2018 World Cup final didn’t disappoint (though this website predicted that it might). France beat Croatia 4-2 in a match that yielded more goals than the previous three finals combined. For Croatia’s golden generation, this might have been the last hurrah. Their best players — Golden Ball winner Luka Modric and midfield genius Ivan Rakitic — are both on the wrong side of 30, and this was probably their last shot at winning the thing. The same is hardly true for this incarnation of Les Bleus: They’re very young, and they might just be getting started.
With an average age of 25.4 years (weighted by minutes played), this was the youngest World Cup-winning team since at least 1966, according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. And although it sounded a little odd to hear from the Fox commentators after the match, it was true that France hardly scratched the surface of its potential during the tournament. Relative to other Cup winners, it had the fourth-lowest goal differential per 90 minutes and the second-worst possession rate of any victor since 1966:
France didn’t control the ball much in victory
World Cup winners with the lowest possession rates, 1966-2018
| goals Per 90 Min. | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | weighted Avg. Age* | W | L | T | for | against | diff. | Poss% |
| 1966 | England | 26.6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1.7 | 0.5 | +1.2 | 46.2% |
| 2018 | France | 25.4 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1.8 | 0.8 | +1.1 | 48.6 |
| 2006 | Italy | 28.7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 1.5 | 0.3 | +1.2 | 48.7 |
| 1982 | Italy | 28.6 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1.7 | 0.8 | +0.8 | 48.8 |
| 2002 | Brazil | 27.1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 2.4 | 0.5 | +1.9 | 48.9 |
| 1986 | Argentina | 26.5 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2.0 | 0.7 | +1.3 | 52.0 |
| 1978 | Argentina | 25.5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2.0 | 0.5 | +1.5 | 52.8 |
| 1998 | France | 27.9 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1.8 | 0.2 | +1.6 | 53.6 |
| 1970 | Brazil | 25.9 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 3.1 | 1.1 | +2.0 | 54.8 |
| 1974 | Germany | 27.1 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1.8 | 0.6 | +1.3 | 56.0 |
| 1990 | Germany | 28.0 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1.9 | 0.7 | +1.3 | 57.8 |
| 1994 | Brazil | 28.1 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 1.4 | 0.4 | +1.0 | 59.4 |
| 2014 | Germany | 27.0 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2.2 | 0.5 | +1.7 | 60.0 |
| 2010 | Spain | 27.0 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1.0 | 0.3 | +0.8 | 65.3 |
But, boy, does this team ever have room to grow. Of France’s top 13 most valuable players according to TransferMarkt.com, just two are over the age of 25. And many of them haven’t even cracked the starting lineup yet. Didier Deschamps’s group won in Russia by playing pragmatic — if boring — soccer. Deschamps asked his players to park the bus more often than he gave them the keys to drive it. But the French roster is brimming with attacking talent — and if Deschamps wants to keep his job,47 he’ll probably be asked to employ a more offensive style of play going forward.
France isn’t going away soon
Age and market value (according to TransferMarkt) for top players on the 2018 French national team
| Player | Age | Market Value |
|---|---|---|
| Kylian Mbappé | 19 | $142.6m |
| Antoine Griezmann | 27 | 118.8 |
| Paul Pogba | 25 | 106.9 |
| Ousmane Dembélé | 21 | 95.0 |
| Raphaël Varane | 25 | 83.2 |
| Thomas Lemar | 22 | 77.2 |
| Samuel Umtiti | 24 | 71.3 |
| Nabil Fekir | 24 | 71.3 |
| N’Golo Kanté | 27 | 71.3 |
| Florian Thauvin | 25 | 59.4 |
| Benjamin Mendy | 23 | 47.5 |
| Corentin Tolisso | 23 | 47.5 |
| Lucas Hernández | 22 | 41.6 |
Luckily for Les Bleus, Best Young Player Award recipient Kylian Mbappé, who became the first teenager to score in a World Cup final since 1958 when some guy named Pelé did so for Brazil, will be just 23 when the next World Cup rolls around (and he’ll be just 21 at Euro 2020). And he’s not the only world-beating young forward on France’s roster: Nabil Fekir, Ousmane Dembélé and Thomas Lemar are all 24 years old or younger. It may sound odd, but the current holders of the FIFA World Cup probably aren’t the best version of themselves yet.
Despite being set up to defer possession and withstand opposition attack after opposition attack, this French group still outperformed offensive expectations: They scored 1.84 goals per 90 minutes, 0.64 goals per 90 more than their expected goals rate of 1.20. All that while relying on a forward (Olivier Giroud) who plays much of the game with his back to the goal, more subdued and defensive-minded versions of Antoine Griezmann and Paul Pogba that hardly resemble their club selves, and a teenager.
As France’s attacking players enter their respective primes — and if Deschamps allows them to play more beautifully — the goal tallies are just going to increase. Les Bleus ought to be scary in two years at Euro 2020, and they ought to be downright devastating in the fall of 2022 in Qatar. France may have just claimed its second ever World Cup trophy, but its best ever team may well exist in the future.