Gauthier Delomez 4:30 p.m., November 19, 2022

Reigning world champions, the France team will be closely scrutinized during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

But the Blues will have to defy a "curse" that has been running since 2010: in the last three editions, the defending champion has each time been eliminated prematurely, and the Blues have already experienced such a misfortune...

Advantage or disadvantage?

The Blues arrive at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in the shoes of the reigning world champions, four and a half years after their victory in the final of the Russian edition against Croatia (4-2).

A status that makes the France team one of the most watched nations at the start of the competition.

But this status has brought bad luck to the last three reigning world champion teams, and also … to the French, in 2002.

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The last three champions eliminated in the first round

This curse results in a premature elimination of a defending nation during the group stage of the following World Cup.

And she has been racing since the 2010 edition. In South Africa, while the French team, finalist four years earlier, is in the throes of a fiasco, Italy, winners in 2006, exited in the first round (two draws, one defeat) in a group F yet largely within its reach (Paraguay, Slovakia, New Zealand).

Spain won its first World Cup in South Africa, then won a second Euro in a row in 2012. At the top of world football, La Roja nevertheless collapsed in the group stage of the Brazilian World Cup in 2014, with a terrible 5-1 initial defeat against the Netherlands.

Sergio Ramos and his partners leave the competition on a record of one victory for two defeats, and leave the field open to Germany, crowned world champion for the fourth time in its history.

For the 2018 World Cup, the saying "never two without three" is true.

Joachim Low's selection finished in last place in a homogeneous group F (Sweden, Mexico, South Korea) and went out in the first round of the Russian edition with a striking 2-0 defeat against the South Korean team. .

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A similar failure for the Blues in 2002

The last three defending teams were therefore all eliminated from the group stages of the following edition.

The Blues will try to put an end to this curse in Qatar in a group D which seems largely within their reach.

But beware, in their past, the French have already suffered this "victor's curse".

Four years after their first victory in 1998, Zinédine Zidane and his partners lived through a nightmarish 2002 edition in Japan and South Korea to finally say goodbye to their chances of victory in the first round (draw against Uruguay, defeats against Senegal and Denmark).

The Blues of 2022 will therefore try to put history on their side, and to imitate Italy and Brazil, the only two nations which have managed to retain their world title in the following edition.