Are France a better team without Kylian Mbappé?

He has carried France on his shoulders many times during his international career, but Kylian Mbappé (25) has been absent for the last two matches.

Won in his absence lesson Bleus three of their previous four matches, going unbeaten in that stretch and topping their Nations League group above Italy.

France manager Didier Deschamps has said it is best for the team at the moment to leave Mbappe out of the team for the past two spells, without providing further explanation.

His omission comes amid a difficult start to life at his new club Real Madrid, while the former AS Monaco striker is also reportedly the subject of an ongoing rape investigation taking place in Sweden. Mbappé has not been named in this investigation, but his entourage told AFP they believe his name appears in the ongoing case.

There's no denying that the 2022 World Cup Golden Boot winner has more quality than any striker Deschamps currently has, scoring the third most goals in the national team's history.

However, apart from a dismal 0-0 draw against Israel, the French looked relatively comfortable in most of the Nations League group games minus their Parisian superstar, scoring multiple times in their four wins without him.

Those eleven goals without him are one more than they scored in their previous eight matches, in which Mbappé was on the pitch for Les Bleus.

Since he was first called up to the first team in March 2017, France have won 11 of 19 games played, with Mbappe not seeing a minute of action.

During that period they suffered two defeats, in a friendly against Finland (2-0) in 2020 and another friendly against Germany (2-1) last year.

The French have won 61% of their matches without their primary talisman, while losing only 11% of the time.

In matches where Mbappé played, Les Bleus came out on top 66% of the time, with 57 wins, while losing 16% of the time, although two of those fourteen defeats came on penalties.

Mbappé has scored just three fewer goals for the French than Thierry Henry (51) in his entire career with the national team, while he is just nine points shy of Olivier Giroud's record (57).

Sooner or later you have to think he will surpass them both, but what are Les Bleus' chances of winning if he finds the back of the net?

Kylian Mbappe has scored in 34 separate matches for France, with Les Bleus winning 85% of those encounters (29 out of 34).

Their only defeat when Mbappe scored was one of the most epic individual performances in World Cup history when he scored a hat-trick against Argentina in the 2022 final.

Take Mbappe away from the France team and you miss an elite player who is easily the most skilled player in this squad.

Without him, however, there seems to be more unity within the group, with all eleven players showing more cohesion than we are used to when the former six-time Ligue 1 top scorer is on the field.

Especially against Italy last Sunday, Les Bleus' chemistry and work ethic was incredibly high, and that carried them to a comfortable win.

While there seems to be more consistency when Mbappe is not on the pitch, there are clearly some disadvantages when he is absent.

Team dynamics are important, but this team struggles with ball progression, chance creation and interplay when out.

Heading into Euro 2024, Mbappé had 75 goals for the national team, 23 more than one of the greatest chance creators in the history of this program at the time, Antoine Griezmann.

Griezmann is no longer there to help in that area and Mbappé is by far the most powerful attacker in the team and probably the best at creating chances.

As good as France looked against Gli Azzurri, there was nothing spectacular they produced going forward, with all three goals coming from set-pieces.

The French need to play differently without Mbappe, and while it has produced some positive results of late, it is difficult to imagine that this will be enough to achieve the ultimate goal of lifting another international trophy.

Only two of their wins, minus the ex-Paris Saint-Germain striker, have been against teams currently ranked in the top 10 by FIFA (Italy and Portugal).

Furthermore, the only other team they have beaten without the services of Mbappe is Croatia, who are currently in the top 20.

GFFN | Joel Lefèvre