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France were the second favourites to win Euro 2024 before a ball was kicked. However, their lack of goals thus far, coupled with being drawn in the heavyweight half of the knockout stages, has seen them slip down the betting order.
Les Bleus were the highest-scoring team in qualifying for the European Championships, scoring an average of 3.62 goals in their eight games. Therefore, has it all gone wrong this summer or are they an unlucky team waiting to take the latter stages of the tournament by storm?
Les Blues Continue to Create Chances
France have scored just three goals in their opening four games of the Euro 2024, which means they are the lowest-scoring team to make the last eight. One of those goals came from the penalty spot against Poland, while the other two were own goals in their 1-0 wins over Austria and Belgium.
Despite this, Didier Deschamps has plenty of quality to call upon in attack. Kylian Mbappe is arguably the world’s best attacker and has just made the switch to Real Madrid. He has been instrumental for France in recent successes and appears to have recovered from the broken nose he suffered against Austria. Therefore, moulding the front line for Kylian to thrive is the manager’s main focus ahead of the Portugal clash.
The French may have scored the same number of goals in normal time as England, but the underlying data is far more encouraging. France have averaged 16.75 attempts per game to this point, well above England’s average of 10.5 shots per game and the tournament average of 12.59 shots per team.
Deschamps’ team are generating plenty of attempts and this means they are the biggest xG underperformers still left at the tournament. This stat suggests France should have scored more goals than they actually have.
Stats Suggest xG Underperformance Won’t Last
With France being the biggest xG underperformers, it’s unsurprising to see both Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe near the top of the list for wasted chances. Statistically, Cristiano Ronaldo has been the most wasteful player at Euro 2024 so far, underperforming his xG by 2.75. Griezmann ranks second in that regard.
The Atletico Madrid attacker is still waiting for his first goal at Euro 2024 and has an xG of 1.92. However, this wastefulness isn’t indicative of his performances for his club. Griezmann scored 16 goals in La Liga last season and managed to outperform his non-penalty xG of 0.33 by scoring 0.47 per 90 minutes played. Kylian Mbappe has the 5th largest xG underperformance at the tournament with -1.54. Last season for PSG, he scored an average of 0.72 non-penalty goals per 90 from an npxG of 0.56. Kylian is also incredibly reliable from the penalty spot.
France have been lethal in front of goal at recent major tournaments. They scored 16 goals in seven matches before losing the last World Cup final on penalties. Despite being beaten in the round of 16 at the last European Championships, the team still managed to find the net in all four of their matches, scoring an average of 1.75 goals per game in the process. Deschamps hopes his attackers can rediscover their Midas touch in the business end of this tournament and we are backing Mbappe to lead that charge.