Katoto<\/strong>, who was the top scorer at last summer\u2019s Olympics, scoring five goals even as her team only won two of their four games.<\/p>\nWhat weakness might other teams exploit?<\/p>\n
Consecutive quarter-final exits at the World Cup and the Olympics (making it eight defeats at that stage of tournaments for France\u2019s women since 2009) raise the question: can they handle the pressure? Despite an abundance of talent, the French have consistently failed to get the job done. New captain Mbock must create a collective greater than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n
Any notable absentees?<\/p>\n
Oh, yes! Bonadei surprisingly omitted former captain Renard, France women\u2019s all-time top goalscorer Le Sommer and San Diego Wave\u2019s Kenza Dali even before their Nations League games a month ago against Switzerland and Iceland. These \u201chistoric\u201d players, in the coach\u2019s words, have 444 caps between them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Einstein said, \u2018Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result\u2019,\u201d Bonadei told a news conference in May. \u201cI want different results for this team, so I have gone with a different selection.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is their strongest starting XI?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/France_.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
How have they performed over the past 12 months?<\/p>\n
After a disappointing performance at their home Olympics under Renard, Bonadei kicked off his tenure with some patchy results: two wins and two defeats, with eight goals scored but seven conceded, including a 4-2 loss to world champions Spain.<\/p>\n
Since the turn of the year, they have performed very well, winning all six of their Nations League matches. France conceded just two goals and topped their group, qualifying for a semi-final against Germany in October with two games to spare.<\/p>\n
The absences of Renard, Le Sommer and Dali did not seem to rock the boat, and there have been convincing wins in the run-up to the tournament, albeit against a mixed standard of opposition \u2014 Switzerland (4-0), Iceland (2-0), Belgium (5-0) and Brazil (3-2).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
What are they expected to achieve at these Euros?<\/p>\n
When Renard was appointed, he and the FFF agreed on two key objectives: to reach at least the semi-finals at the 2023 World Cup and last year\u2019s Paris-hosted Olympics. Neither happened.<\/p>\n
This time around the FFF has avoided setting such ambitions and Bonadei has even called his team outsiders, all with an eye on the 2027 World Cup. Of course, both parties would love to win but realistically reaching the semi-finals would meet expectations.<\/p>\n
They face stern opposition in their group: reigning champions England await in the opening game, while their third and final match against the Netherlands could prove crucial to their hopes of progressing to the knockouts. Wales will hardly roll over in the middle game, either.<\/p>\n
Did you know?<\/p>\n
Katoto has had rotten luck with major tournaments.<\/p>\n
The Paris Saint-Germain No 9 was not selected for the 2019 World Cup despite finishing as the French top flight\u2019s leading goalscorer the previous season, then suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injury in the second group game at Euro 2022 and did not recover from it in time to play in the World Cup a year later.<\/p>\n
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France \u2014 always in the mix in the major tournaments of the women\u2019s game, yet still without a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,84559,9201],"class_list":{"0":"post-220449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-womens-euros","12":"tag-womens-soccer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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