The benevolent shadow of Michel Platini has hung over French football since the national team he led were beaten by Germany in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Platini, arguably the best player the country has ever produced, currently heads the organising committee for the World Cup in France in two years time. Four years ago he coached France in the European Championship in Sweden where they were disappointing. A decade after Mexico and 12 years after the tears flowed at the Parc des Princes when Platini held the European Championship trophy aloft, France have a team capable not only of winning Euro 96 but also taking the ultimate prize on home soil in 1998 - the World Cup. The present French team have the potential to be better than the great side led by Platini because they have so much all round brilliance - and they are a team.
The omission of Eric Cantona was met with disbelief by those who do not follow French football but that decision epitomised the philosophy of coach Aime Jacquet and the present strengths of France. Cantona won the English Premier League - not Manchester United. In the crucial final weeks of the season it was the supreme individualist Cantona who popped up with half a dozen match-winning goals as injury-hit, much-changed United staggered from game to game. The French team today are not about individuals although they have players sought after, and some already signed, by the greatest clubs in Europe.
Under Jacquet, the French have been moulded together into a most formidable unit built on free-flowing football and an inner confidence that has been growing apace with every game played. Those fortunate enough to see Euro 96 in Hong Kong will end up discussing the talents of players such as Bixente Lizarazu and Zinedine Zidane, now en route to Italy after playing quite magnificently for France and Bordeaux. More familiar names will be Youri Djorkaeff who has now been signed by Roy Hodgson at Inter Milan.
The English coach also snapped up Jocelyn Angloma who remains arguably the best attacking full-back in Europe. Then there is Marcel Desailly and Christian Karembeu, who have both carved out excellent careers in the demanding arena of Serie A. Christophe Dugarry, also likely to be on the way from Bordeaux, Laurent Blanc, from double winners Auxerre, striker Patrice Loko (PSG). The list goes on. France reach England with a side totally capable of returning home with the Euro 96 trophy and there are high expectations that they will do just that.
Their last warm-up games involved wins over Finland, Germany - the first in 40 years on German soil - and Armenia so that Jacquet and his players take on Romania in their opening match with an unbeaten sequence of 23 games behind them. For months, France have been my choice for Euro 96 glory and the intervening games have only strengthened that conviction. Similarly, a view that England, even with the real benefit of host status, cannot win Euro 96 has merely been underscored by recent events. The string of friendlies which Terry Venables planned as preparation for the championship still seem, in hindsight, to have been arranged as much to protect his reputation as assist in England's development.
It matters little that teams like Greece and China are beaten, or America for that matter. If England, in friendlies or otherwise, cannot beat teams in this bracket they have no right to be considered as potential challengers for the Euro title. The dreadful performance at the Hong Kong Stadium 10 days ago showed some alarming shortcomings in the England team . . . not least the lethal lack of pace and agility of Tony Adams at the back. And when players at this level cannot pass a ball to a teammate over 20 yards, the signs are ominous.