England will need to pull out all the stops if they’re going to beat France in the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals on Saturday.
The Three Lions looked mightily impressive in their 3-0 win over Senegal in the round of 16, but it’s one thing to beat the champions of Africa and another things to beat the champions of the world.
And one of the biggest threats that Gareth Southgate’s men will face at the Al Bayt Stadium is the sheer amount of pace that France boasts out wide.
Why should Walker start vs France?
It’s not for no reason that scores and scores of England fans are calling for Kyle Walker to keep his place in the team because he’s widely seen as the best equipped member of the squad when it comes to dealing with raw speed.
Walker is, after all, touted by many of his teammates past and present as one of the fastest players that they’ve ever worked with, and the Manchester City star will certainly need said turn of pace against Les Bleus.
Besides, you only have to look at how Didier Deschamps lined up his team for the 3-0 win over Poland to get the picture: Kylian Mbappe on the left and Ousmane Dembele on the right.
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The Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona stars are two of the speediest players in men’s football with EA Sports’ FIFA video games series awarding them pace ratings of 97 and 93 respectively.
However, Walker is right up there too with a rating of 91, which certainly bests Trent Alexander-Arnold (76), Kieran Trippier (70) and Luke Shaw (76) by comparison.
But will that be enough to stop Dembele or Mbappe from leaving him in their dust?
Well, we don’t exactly have a crystal ball that would allow us to tell you in advance, but we can indeed look back to past meetings between Walker and the France duo to get an idea as to how things might play out.
Who is fastest: Walker, Mbappe or Dembele?
And it turns out that Walker does have some history when it comes to going toe-to-toe with Dembele, in particular, in a foot race.
That’s because there’s some fantastic footage that still does the rounds on YouTube of Walker and Dembele battling it out in the closest thing you can possibly get to a sprinting race in the middle of a match when England and France played each other in 2017.
Truth be told, it’s one of the most exciting battles of speed that we’ve seen on a football pitch, so be sure check out Dembele and Walker putting on the afterburners down below:
Video: Dembele and Walker do battle in foot race
Geez. Electric stuff from both players, but you’ve got to say that Walker held his own in the end.
And perhaps even more importantly given who Deschamps usually favours on Walker’s side of the pitch, he arguably fared even better against Mbappe a few years later as Manchester City and PSG slugged it out in the Champions League.
Granted, it’s a far less exciting case study and Mbape had the disadvantage of carrying the ball most of the time, but it nevertheless gives an insight into how Walker might fair against one of the best and quickest players in the world.
Video: Walker shows Mbappe his electric pace
So, it’s a pretty solid record for Walker when it comes to racing France’s top speedsters.
Either way, though, if anyone’s equipped to represent England in a battle of speed regardless of what Deschamps throws at him, then you can feel pretty certain that it’s Walker – and that’s why Southgate has surely got to play him on Saturday.
After all, there are already plenty of teams who can vouch for the fact that Mbappe’s pace can be the difference between winning and losing.
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