William Saliba's chances of making his World Cup debut before the group phase is over may have just increased thanks to Kylian Mbappe.
Whilst he has been an automatic starter in central defence for Arsenal so far this season, that's not the case at international level and there's a strong case to suggest the Frenchman is below Raphael Varane, Dayot Upamecano and Ibrahima Konate in the pecking order.
An unused substitute as Les Bleus beat Australia in their opening game of the 2022 World Cup, it was more of the same for Saliba against Denmark on Saturday afternoon - although, in truth, based on previous experiences, it was an understandable decision from Didier Deschamps.
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Without kicking a ball against the Danes, it could be a case that Saliba starts, or is involved in some capacity, in the final group game against Tunisia next week as the France manager will have the luxury of making wholesale changes.
This is because the reigning world champions have sealed their place in the last-16 thanks to a brace from Kylian Mbappe in the 2-1 win over the Danes, which in turn has seen a tournament 'curse' that stretches back over two decades broken.
Now, when France won the World Cup on home soil 24 years ago after beating Brazil 3-0 in the final, they did not do a great job in their attempts to defend their crown four years later in Japan and South Korea, to say the very least.
Crashing out at the group stage, finishing bottom of the table, without a win and zero goals scored after losing to Senegal and Denmark as well as drawing with Uruguay, it was the first time the World Cup holders had been eliminated at the first round since Brazil in 1966.
The trend has occurred three more times since, with Italy, Spain and more recently Germany all falling foul to the World Cup champions' curse in 2010, 2014 and 2018 respectively. As a result, heading into Qatar, the tournament's last four winners from Europe had all failed to progress past the group stage in the following World Cup.
France would have been well aware of this curse as they came into this World Cup as the defending champions having won their second title in Russia four years ago. But thanks largely to Mbappe's brace, history will not be repeating itself 20 years later.
So with Les Bleus already guaranteed a place in the round of 16 stage, the final group game against Tunisia is now effectively a dead-rubber as it would take a bizarre sequence of results to deny them top spot. This can be a dream scenario for Saliba as Deschamps may look to hand the Arsenal defender a start in a much-changed defence.
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