Cup Champions Curse Is No Match for Mbappe, France
Published by
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
By Brian Straus If ever a team were going to be susceptible to the troubling trend plaguing defending World Cup champions, it’d be France. But this group and its star are different. DOHA, Qatar—The recent World Cup winners’ curse seems like something that was tailor-made for France. This is a country whose national teams are immensely gifted, but which has experienced as much epic, soap-opera style failure as memorable success. Les Bleus always seem to be dribbling along that razor thin barrier between legend and ignominy. And it’s a program that has a habit of tempting fate, pushing the locke…