People argue about the French national team rosters forever. Is it 1998? Is it 2018? Every time I go to the pub, someone starts screaming about Zidane or Mbappé. I just got completely fed up with the shouting match, honestly. It always ends up being about emotion, not actual facts. So, I decided to shut everyone up myself. I was going to properly sit down and compare those two World Cup winning squads side-by-side. No guesswork, no bias—just cold, hard practical analysis.
The Initial Grind: Pulling the Data
My first action was pulling the official 22-man rosters for both tournaments. I didn’t want any Wikipedia errors or retrospective biases. I used the archived FIFA World Cup sites just to be certain. I printed off the two lists, stuck them on a massive corkboard I have in my garage, and got straight to work trying to standardize the comparison. This is where the headache started immediately.
I mean, how the heck do you compare players separated by twenty years? Lilian Thuram was a different animal than Benjamin Pavard. And trying to weigh the prestige of a Dugarry vs. a Giroud is just asking for trouble. I spent a solid half-day trying to create a complex algorithm based on transfer market value at the time and Champions League minutes. It was total garbage. The market was completely different. I scrapped that whole complicated mess and went back to basics.
I realized I needed internal metrics—stuff that doesn’t change much regardless of the era. I decided to focus on three core areas:
- Average Age and Caps: Who was more experienced coming into the tournament?
- Club Centrality: How important were they to their domestic team? Were they starting every week for a major European club, or were they riding the bench?
- Bench Quality (Positional Depth): If the star player got hurt, how screwed was the coach?
I opened up a huge spreadsheet and started logging every single player’s stats onto it. This was tedious, let me tell you. Tracking down the exact club status for some of the lesser-known 1998 players—like Stéphane Guivarc’h—took forever. I was constantly hitting dead ends, having to cross-reference old newspaper archives to confirm playing time. It was like I had taken a second job, but for football trivia.
Midfield Monsters vs. Attacking Missiles
What quickly became obvious during the data logging was the fundamental difference in team philosophy. The 1998 team was a fortress. I logged the cumulative defensive stats, and the 98 back five (including Deschamps and Petit in the pivot) was just insane. They conceded two goals in seven games in the tournament. That’s not good, that’s historically perfect. I logged the starting XI experience and realized they were significantly older, averaging closer to 28, and already legends in their clubs.
The 2018 squad, I found by logging their average age, was way younger and faster. This team was engineered for sheer pace. While the 1998 attack often struggled for goals (Guivarc’h was a zero, let’s be honest), the 2018 team had Griezmann, Mbappé, and a reliable Giroud holding things up. I ran the numbers on goals scored per match in the tournament; 2018 won hands down on attack volume. This confirms what everyone knew, but it was nice to see the numbers back it up.
But the real revelation came when I analyzed the bench depth. This is where my initial feeling that 2018 was better started to crack. 2018 had fantastic depth, sure (Fekir, Lemar, Kimpembe). But when I looked at the 1998 reserves, I saw names like Alain Boghossian and Patrick Vieira waiting. Vieira! That guy was already a world-class beast. The positional quality in midfield for 1998, even on the bench, was frightening. They had multiple players who were ready to step into the starting lineup without any drop-off.
The Final Verdict and Why I Did All This
After three full weekends of charting, comparing, and cross-referencing, I had my conclusion. I printed the final charts and stuck them up. It proved something crucial: you can’t compare them just on star power. I realized I was comparing a defensive behemoth against an offensive juggernaut. My practice had led me away from simple answers.
I finally summarized my findings: 2018 had better individual attackers (Mbappé is unstoppable) and higher career potential across the whole squad. But 1998 had a superior, almost unbreakable team chemistry and defensive steel. They conceded fewer goals because they were fundamentally harder to play against. It was a machine built by Desailly and Blanc.
Why did I put myself through all this misery? Simple. I remember watching the 1998 final when I was a kid. That feeling was magic. And when 2018 won, it felt different—more dominant, maybe less scrappy. My mate Steve still texts me every time France plays, arguing about this. I finally texted him back the entire spreadsheet link and stated my absolute conclusion: 1998 wins if it’s a tight, defensive battle. 2018 wins if it’s a track meet. And then I blocked his number for two hours so he couldn’t argue. Peace and quiet. The research was worth it.
I closed the spreadsheet down and finally wiped the whiteboard clean. Project complete.