Five reasons France won the World Cup

#5 The usual suspects weren’t at it

Germany were knocked out in the group stage

Coming into the tournament, France weren’t the favourites to come away with the trophy. That was Brazil, closely followed by Germany and Spain. The Germans didn’t even make it past the group stages, as they were dumped out following defeats to Mexico and South Korea. Spain fell at the round of 16 after a penalty shootout loss to hosts Russia, while Brazil were beaten by a rampant Belgium side in the quarter finals.

Obviously, they say you can only beat what’s in front of you, and that’s exactly what they did, but there is no doubt that they benefitted from not facing any of those three. They still had to beat some big teams, but that included a Uruguay side without Edinson Cavani, and a below-average Argentina side. We will never know if they would have been good enough to beat any of the big three sides, but their run to the trophy was certainly simpler without their presence.