Only one of England's players would make the France starting XI, according to William Gallas.
The former Arsenal and Chelsea star, like many of his compatriots, is in confident mood ahead of the quarter-final meeting between the two rivals. England and France have not met in a major tournament for a decade but will square off on Saturday with a place in the last four at stake.
France, aiming to defend their World Cup title, have a star-studded squad from which to pick and Gallas believes only Declan Rice would make the cut for Les Blues. That means he has snubbed the likes of Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane and Phil Foden as he poured praise of Rice, who he cannot believe is still at West Ham.
He told Genting Casino : "I would only take France's starting XI because, although England has some quality players, especially in midfield, France have Adrien Rabiot so it wouldn't be good if I chose any England players in my team."
"No one scares me in this England team. I'm not scared about one player, but Declan Rice is England's squad and no one is really speaking about him - he's unbelievable. He does the same thing with West Ham and I don't know why he's still there. For a long time, I've not seen a midfielder like him - he's strong, powerful and technically he's unbelievable.
"I'm more scared about England's midfield three than just one player. Pickford is a good player, but he hasn't played for a big club yet. I'm talking about the top five teams in the league and Everton isn't near that."
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Markus Gilliar - GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)France's midfield, even without the injured Paul Pogba and N'Golo Kante, still boasts stars like Adrien Rabiot and Edouardo Camavinga. The latter has just claimed Champions League glory with Real Madrid, who added his compatriot Aurélien Tchouaméni in the summer.
Kylian Mbappe is also on course to win the Golden Boot having scored five times already, including a wonderful brace against Poland in the last 16. Kyle Walker is set to be tasked with keeping the PSG star quiet on Saturday with England potentially tweaking their system to counter the forward.
Gallas said on their duel: "Kylian Mbappe is a clever boy and he's faced Kyle Walker before and I think he'll find the solution to win that battle. For the first 85 minutes, Kyle Walker could be on top in the battle but maybe in the last five minutes, Kylian can score the winner at any time and everyone will say he won the battle [against Walker]."
