France — Sweden 3:0 — The Most Honest Scoreline

France dispatched Sweden 3:0 at MetLife Stadium on 30 June 2026, and the headline number isn't French at all: Sweden's goalkeeper made 9 saves, one of the busiest shifts of the entire group stage. The Crime Index of 48% stays calm because the xG line — 3.17 to 0.65 — accounts for both the scoreline and the reason it wasn't heavier.

25 shots, 16 from inside the box: the French conveyor

France manufactured 25 attempts on a platform of 61% possession and 485 completed passes against 280. The structure mattered more than the volume: 16 efforts came from inside the box against 9 from range, which is how a 3.17 xG gets assembled without a single speculative binge.

Twelve attempts hit the target. Three goals from 3.17 xG is a conversion of 0.95 — fractionally under par, meaning France actually banked slightly less than it built. The shortfall has a specific address: the opposing goalkeeper's gloves.

Nine corners to 1 rounds out the picture of one-directional traffic.

Nine saves and +1.16 Goals Prevented: Sweden's keeper against the machine

Twelve on-target shots minus nine saves equals the three that got through. The Goals Prevented figure of +1.16 quantifies the heroics — more than a full goal stopped beyond expectation, behind a defence that kept leaving him alone with the conveyor.

The metric's small irony: both keepers finished at +1.16, though France's faced just 3 accurate shots and saved all three. Identical grades for incomparable workloads — a reminder that the stat measures performance against expectation, not exhaustion.

Sweden's 0.65 xG: eight attempts without weight

The visitors' attack existed on paper: 8 attempts, 7 of them technically inside the box but valued at just 0.65 xG — the signature of shots taken with no time and no space. Three reached the target; none beat the keeper.

One corner in ninety minutes is the most eloquent Swedish statistic of the night. This was not a team failing to convert chances; it was a team rarely reaching the neighbourhoods where chances live.

The small print agrees with the headline

Sweden's defenders blocked 4 French attempts while having 1 of their own blocked — real resistance, just hopelessly outscaled. France strayed offside 3 times to 1, the cost of squeezing the last line all evening, and even out-fouled Sweden 14 to 10 through aggressive counter-pressing after losses.

The cleanest reading: France combined pressure with patience, took 25 attempts without a single desperate one, converted at par, and won by exactly the margin the model predicted — minus the goal and a bit that one goalkeeper refused to concede.

Digging into possession and accuracy

France and Sweden split the ball 61% to 39%; on its own that number doesn't explain the result, but it frames the rest of the data. On the passing numbers, France finished at 88.0% and Sweden at 79.5% — the side dictating circulation wasn't necessarily the side creating the better chances.

France were penalised 14 times, Sweden 10 times; the report doesn't break fouls down by zone, so it's hard to tie the number directly to chances conceded. Offsides: 3 for France, 1 for Sweden — a rough marker of how often either attack tried to time runs in behind.

Corners went 9-1 to France. Shots inside the box read 16 for France against 7 for Sweden, with 9 and 1 coming from outside it.

France's defence blocked more efforts (4 in total) — a detail the final score doesn't show but the report does.

The gap between expected and actual outcome is exactly why this game is worth a second look: 3.17-0.65 on xG against 3-0 on the scoreboard.

This match carries a mismatch index of 48 out of 100 on the site's scale — the higher it runs, the further the final score drifted from what the underlying chance quality suggested.

All figures above come from the official match report for France vs Sweden, with nothing estimated or rounded by eye.