The football season in Europe is slowly starting to come to an end, and for many, that means that a summer of international football is upon us once more. We’ve got a series of intriguing competitions to look forward to including the Women’s World Cup, Copa America and Africa Cup of Nations. Alongside that there is the UEFA Nations League to look forward to, as well as a parade of international friendlies – although we know that not everyone is a massive fan of the idea of friendlies. Still, they can be beneficial in some ways, right? Well, kind of.

The game we’re going to be looking at today will see world champions France go head to head with Bolivia. It’s safe to say that these two nations find themselves in incredibly different positions to one another in terms of their overall quality. As such it’d probably be fair to describe the game as a bit of a David vs Goliath encounter, because we aren’t exactly exaggerating that fact. Still, on the day, you just never know who is going to show up, especially when the smaller nation has a chance to put themselves on the map in a big way.

The French are still, in many ways, celebrating the fact that they won the World Cup last summer, and rightly so. It takes a while to come back down to Earth after such a monumental achievement, especially with this being just the second time that they’ve won it. The big task now for them is going to be winning the European Championships next summer, and when you take one look at the depth in their squad, it’s hard to imagine them not being amongst the contenders. After all, they managed to win the World Cup whilst playing in first gear for 95% of the tournament.

Bolivia is known for being a difficult place to go to due to the conditions at play, but beyond that, there isn’t all too much of an intimidation factor when it comes to their style of play or the quality of their team. They’ve got the Copa America coming up shortly in which they’ll be taking on some of the biggest and best clubs that South America has to offer, so taking on the world champions should give them a pretty good idea of where they’re at. Sure, they aren’t exactly world beaters, but it seems like they’re going to give it a good go.

France’s last six games have certainly been intriguing to say the last, starting off with a Euro 2016 rematch against Iceland which they drew 2-2. They went on to defeat Germany 2-1 in their Nations League group, before losing a really key game to the Netherlands 2-0. They seemed to realise that they needed to get back on track quickly, and they did so with a win over Uruguay. Since then they have kickstarted their European Championship Qualifying campaign perfectly, sticking four goals past both Moldova and Iceland as they eased towards a very comfortable six points to get things rolling.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ve got Bolivia, who haven’t really had a serious competitive game in quite some time now. They lost to Iran back in October, before a somewhat surprising 0-0 draw against the United Arab Emirates. Another somewhat embarrassing result soon followed as they drew 0-0 with Iraq, before an eventful yet surprising 2-2 draw with Nicaragua. They went on to lose to South Korea who actually beat Germany in the World Cup as many of us know, and then in their latest game on March 26th, they lost 1-0 to Japan to mark their second defeat in a matter of days.

These two nations aren’t listed to have actually faced each other competitively before, which should make for a pretty interesting feeling out process. We all know that the gulf in styles between South America and Europe is pretty massive, but we wonder whether or not Bolivia will try and get a little bit physical as opposed to trying to play gorgeous football. The French like to play the game at their own pace and at their own tempo, and they certainly won’t appreciate anyone trying to upset the status quo in that regard.

Picking a squad for friendly games can often be hard when the domestic season has just come to an end, because there is always the lingering possibility of more important games being left for some of the squad players to get involved in. That happens to be the case this time around as both Hugo Lloris and Moussa Sissoko will be unavailable for the world champions, as they are preparing to play in the UEFA Champions League final later today. Aside from that, it seems like many of France’s big hitters are going to be making an appearance before heading off on their holidays.

Name value isn’t exactly at a premium when it comes to this Bolivia squad, and to be honest, that’s been the case for quite some time now. Interestingly enough, though, Marcelo Martins and the three Puebla-based players are going to be the only non-domestic players that will feature, which is quite the statistic. Bolivia prides itself on picking and choosing players that seemingly live and die by their country, and it’ll be fascinating to see whether or not that patriotism also brings over a significant amount of Bolivian fans for a game that won’t mean all too much in the grand scheme of things.

France vs Bolivia Betting Prediction

It’s really difficult to imagine anything other than a comprehensive win for Les Bleus. Funnily enough Bolivia haven’t actually conceded all too many goals as of late, but they also haven’t been picking up many positive results either. We can see France taking their time to break them down before edging their way into the lead midway through the first half, and from that point on, they’ll be in cruise control. Bolivia will probably defend very valiantly and give as good as they get, but this is the world champions we’re talking about here.

France will win both halves and probably won’t make it all too fun of a game to watch in the second half, but their job is to win, and we’re pretty sure they’re going to do so with relative ease. The big question marks are going to be how they contend with their upcoming qualifiers, because they certainly can’t afford to take them lightly. They’ll almost definitely qualify for the tournament next summer as we’re all expecting, but in many ways, not qualifying for the next round of the Nations League has raised a few eyebrows.

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