One Of The France Squad Is A World Cup Winner Without Winning A Cap

Winning the World Cup comes after years of hard work, experience and building yourself into an international player- that is of course unless you've never actually played for the team and still win a medal.

Benjamin Mendy was one of the big talking points to come out of the World Cup final, pretty impressive considering he never got on in the biggest game and Paul Pogba, Kylian Mbappe, Olivier Giroud and Hugo Lloris gave us enough to talk about.

The left-back was an interesting topic because of his absolute lack of football that won him a Premier League winners medal and World Cup winners medal in the same year, nice work if you can get it.

Of course if it were up to the former Monaco full back he would have played a hell of a lot of football so it's definitely no criticism, quite frankly if you can do that little work and achieve so much whilst doing it you should only be applauded.

Mendy though wasn't the only one to barely play in the World Cup, in fact one of France's players hasn't got a single cap for his country. PSG goalie Alphonse Areola, third choice for Didier Deschamps, doesn't have a single cap to his name but is now a world champion.

Areola celebrating with the French flag after winning the World Cup. Image: PA Images

It is not unheard of for players to win the tournament without playing a minute of the competition, especially third choice goalkeepers, but it's rare for a player to have never appeared for the national side before the tournament.

Erik Durm and Victor Valdes both failed to play a single minute for Germany and Spain in the previous two World Cups and ended up with medals.

Areola though is the first player in 36 years to win the trophy without ever having played even a minute for the national side.

Baggio and Baresi after the 1994 loss to Brazil. Image: PA Images

In 1982 Italy won the World Cup, beating West Germany 3-1 in the final, with both Franco Baresi and Giovanni Galli having never played for the national team.

Baresi went on to be one of the best centre backs of all time, and certainly of his generation, but failed to win the World Cup for a second time when Italy lost to Brazil in the 1994 final.

Areola has already achieved the ultimate in football without playing for France, that's very impressive.

Topics: Football News, PSG, World Cup news, World Cup, France

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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