France let their opponents do the hard work on their way to winning the World Cup, running less than most teams and enjoying less than 50 percent possession throughout the tournament, a FIFA technical report showed on Tuesday.

The report also showed that the French scored once in every six shots on goal — compared with once in 36 shots for Germany, who were knocked out in the first round. The two sides meet in the UEFA Nations League on Tuesday night.

As expected, the FIFA report showed that Spain enjoyed the most possession at an average of 69 percent, but the style of play that brought them great dividends from 2008 to 2012 proved their undoing in Russia as they were knocked out in the second round.

France ranked a modest 19th out of the 32 teams in terms of possession, controlling the ball an average of 49 percent of the time in their games, behind Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Peru among others.

They also ran an average of 101 kilometres per match — the fifth-lowest figure at the tournament ahead of only Argentina, Mexico, Nigeria and Panama