We'll start out by stating yet again that I am not a huge fan of this sport and participate in it only because well, everyone else is.
The tension was high in the bar that I was sitting in last night. Nearly everyone in the place either was French or was there with someone who was French. I do not speak French so i spoke to almost no one. I had not seen France play yet in any of their games thus far and I have to say that aside from a few hiccups, I was extremely impressed.
They completely dominated the game in every way which wouldn't mean much if they were playing say, New Zealand, but to do that against Uruguay, a country that lives and breathes football to the point where it may as well be the official religion of the country, is extremely impressive.
I didn't look at the stats but i was in the front row, eyes glued to the screen and it just seemed like France had possession for most of the match. They were patient in their choices and didn't waste chances on goal.
One of the best moments of the game for me was when the France keeper Lloris made a clearance and was surveying the field with a very serious look on his face and a dragonfly magically made its way to his mouth. They did slo-mo and the commentators made remarks about it. The patrons of my bar were in stitches.
The only blemish on the evening of otherwise fair play was the pathetic actions of Kylian Mbappe from France. I think that he has definitely taken the most incredibly stupid dive that I have ever seen. It was so bad that there was a near fight between the teams on the pitch afterwards. There was barely any contact at all and it begs the question "why do people still do this when they know that VAR is going to catch it?" I guess old habits are difficult to get rid of.
The bar i was in, which was mostly French customers mind you, erupted into applause when Mbappe get a yellow card and I think that says something: The entire world is sick of this side of the sport - to the point where your own fans are cheering against you.
Guess who Mbappe is teammates with? None other than Neymar of Brazil. When I found that out, it all started to make sense to me.