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This will be Portugal’s 35th game at the Euros - the most of any country without a trophy to their name. Guardian

Euro 2016: why France are favourites and would be popular champions

This article is more than 7 years old

Victory over Portugal for Didier Deschamps’ mix of veteran and youthful talents would bring cheer to a country that has had a bloody and fretful year

After 30 days, 50 games, 107 goals, 5,000 kilometres run and several distinct phases of inertia and intrigue, Euro 2016 has its final. It is the right final too. If Didier Deschamps’ team could get there, France against someone else always looked the right way to end these warily embraced championships staged by a willing if slightly weary host, a nation still in a state of official emergency after a bloody and fretful year.

The cracks have showed at times, but not often and less so with every passing round. In Marseille on Thursday night, birthplace of the original march on Paris, there was something genuinely cheering in the spectacle of 45,000 French, with relief as well as pageantry in the air, cheering their team off to the Stade de France.

There is a tendency to find some rather glib simplifications in the spectacle of sport, to swallow the idea that these gaudy formalities can provide a lasting balm for the bruises of the real world. Midway through this tournament there was even a creeping suggestion that the two-week summer holiday jaunts of a few thousand Irish and Welsh could somehow heal the scars of Paris, uniting a nation behind the power of craic. The Celts have gone home now. But France still faces strikes, paranoia, soldiers on the streets and potentially grisly elections next year.

And yet there is a place for sport here. The show rolls on. There will be a party in Paris on Sunday night and the chance for a little ceremonial communion is a genuinely alluring prospect. France will be favourites, and they would be popular winners too. Even their stodgy start in the same venue a month ago ended with Dimitri Payet, the boy from Réunion, producing a spectacular, galvanising winning goal. They have been the most compelling team at this tournament.

There are other intriguing aspects to this France team. Not least the mix of veteran and youthful talents and the inspiring sporting backstories of many of the players, from N’Golo Kanté’s rise from Ligue 2 via Leicester to the decisive presence of the itinerant Antoine Griezmann. Plus, of course, Griezmann brings his own more disturbing backstory to Paris.

There is no obvious meaning, no easy moral to be drawn from the fact Griezmann’s elder sister Maud was a survivor of the Bataclan attacks last November on the same night France were playing Germany across town. The temptation will be to see some circular note of defiance, a borrowed significance in what is essentially a coincidence, one small part of a traumatic story tacked on to the simplicities of sport. Still, though, it is impossible not to be moved by the prospect. The echoes are unavoidably there. And the Stade de France promises to be a febrile place on Sunday night for reasons that go beyond football.

There is, of course, another team involved. Portugal are also deserving finalists, as all finalists are. Their progress has been tenacious rather than thrilling and there will be a temptation to cast these teams in contrasting lights. One thought occurs. Given France’s emotional weight, what an opportunity this is for Cristiano Ronaldo to make an absolute public villain of himself. Undeserved, no doubt. But a glorious infamy is a scuffed-penalty 1-0 win away.

It is a peculiar feature of Portugal’s run that Ronaldo, the team’s captain and totem, has been portrayed by many as the ultimate sporting egotist. The oppositions are already forming before this final: heroes versus hair gel; liberté, égalité, fraternité versus me, myself and I; the needs of the many against shouting at Nani.

This is to misunderstand the nature of sport and also to belittle Portugal’s achievement. There are still some excellent contrasts between the two finalists. In Ronaldo and Paul Pogba, the Stade de France will host what looks like European football’s present against its future. Portugal have a nagging, slightly fussy style, whereas France like to strike quickly and with elan. In textural terms, this could yet pan out as Portugal’s light drizzle against France’s violent hailstorms. Plus, Portugal are the clear underdog, a nation of 10 million that has overachieved consistently against the hosts, two-times champions and the de facto cradle of the Uefa-zone game.

Beyond this, there are also plenty of similarities. As the smaller nations progressed through this tournament there was cautious talk of a “Leicester effect”, of some unlikely winner emerging. France and Portugal are not this. But there is an unusually homemade, underdog-ish feel to both groups of players.

Portugal may have a star but their most notable quality is that willing team spirt. To a degree this is a group of survivors, from the high-profile but still relatively unfulfilled careers of Ricardo Quaresma and Nani, to the late-blooming success of José Fonte. They are a gritty bunch. Never mind the Ronaldo-as-lone-pop-star theory. Portugal’s success here is a tribute to spirit and tactical intelligence.

France also have a mixed group. Half the first team have taken angular, zig-zagging journeys to this spot. Griezmann, Payet, Kanté, Olivier Giroud and Laurent Koscielny thrived outside the elite academy system and were capped relatively late. Most teams are more random than they first look. But there is a point of contrast here against, for example, a World Cup final in Brazil that brought a meeting of two golden crops from Germany and Argentina.

France and Portugal are also two of the great export powers of European club football, a kitchen garden of the Champions League set. France exports more players than any European nation, with Portugal not far behind relative to size. All but a tiny handful of the starters will have been playing abroad before the age of 25. Their success is a tribute to the fecund, functioning youth structure of both nations, and to the benefits of travel and wider experience.

Griezmann crops up again here, European football’s Schengen Area poster boy whose formative years were removed from France, where he is still to play a club match at any level. It seems likely Griezmann will again play close to Giroud, from where he has been a beautifully balanced, mobile cutting edge. Portugal will hope Pepe recovers in time.

For France the key is getting the balance in midfield right. The power and craft of Pogba and Blaise Matuidi have been evident only intermittently. Against Germany the absence of Kanté was felt. Similarly Portugal will look to strengthen their own midfield. William Carvalho is available again. How effectively that midfield can close the spaces in front of the defence could be key.

France are not just the emotional choice to win this final. For all Portugal’s qualities, the hosts look stronger in almost every area, with greater peaks of talent and greater thrust in their attacking play. Ronaldo remains the obvious variable. But France have what feels like a winning momentum, a team driven on rather than dragged down by hosting a tournament with its own burdens, its own peculiar noises off.

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