Why no French players make this 'team of the World Cup'
Despite the fact that France won the World Cup, none of their stars made the cut in one particular best XI .
Statistic specialists ‘WhoScored.com’ have released a team of the World Cup focused only on player stats, and bizarrely no player from the title-winning France team feature.
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In fact only one player of the 22 who started the final – Golden Ball winner Luka Modric – was named in the team.
So that’s no Kylian Mbappe who scored four goals, including one in the final, no Antoine Griezmann, no Paul Pogba, no N’Golo Kante, no Rafael Varane.
And what about Croatia? Winger Ivan Perisic made a pretty strong contribution to their World Cup campaign. Mario Mandzukic and Ivan Rakitic also had a solid case.
In fact, looking at the players who did make the cut, it gets even more baffling.
Despite only scoring two goals and getting knocked out in the quarter finals, Brazil’s Neymar made the cut ahead of Mbappe, and there’s no room in the side for teammate Philippe Coutinho.
Russia’s Mario Fernandes is named at right back, when Sime Vrsaljko could have felt he deserved better.
Colombia defender Yerry Mina scored three goals, but was he really the second best-rated player in Russia?
Varane, Samuel Umtiti and Belgian pair Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld all had superb campaigns as well.
England fans could reasonably expected to have Harry Maguire or John Stones in the selection reckoning as well.
Luckily teams aren’t usually selected based on stats…