Miguel Delaney

But it's interesting, like from speaking to people about this and people with a bit of knowledge of the French camp, the French probably, in terms of attacking talent, that overall they've probably got more than Spain.

But there's been a bit of concern within the French squad.

It's all gone stale under Deschamps.

He doesn't play in a way that suits the players.

But he might now suddenly play a way that suits his competition because he kind of sits in a defensive block.

It's relatively slow.

That, again, might just suit the conditions and just allow release.

And suddenly you're in a situation where they go far.

Which is something Dion mentioned there as well.

This is where the expansion actually directly affects the tournament, and I think not in a good way.

So they've brought back this, something I've always hated, even though Ireland have partly benefited from it,

which is the third-place teams going through.

I hate it.

It just distorts the group stage.

Also, you've got this situation of half the time in the tournament to spend getting rid of 16 teams to still have 32 left.

But it does mean... If you look at Argentina at the moment, they've won three international trophies in a row, like Spain in 2008-12.

People think they look good because of that.

But the team is largely the same as throughout that.

It's suddenly looking a bit jaded.

And they have that feel of Spain in 2014.