The French Delegation of Military athletes arrived in Wuhan on Tuesday. This year, the French Army is sending over 400 people, one of the largest groups of this year's Military Games. The French soldiers will take part in no less than 22 disciplines. One of them is football.

A couple of days before arriving in Wuhan, the French Military Football Team played its final preparation match in an empty stadium on the outskirts of Paris. A big contrast with the 30,000 spectators who will be watching the French in Wuhan's stadium this week. "That will be pretty impressive indeed," says the Team Captain, the Gendarmerie Sergeant Johann. "But more importantly: we are looking forward to our trip to China and to meet all kinds of different people and different cultures."

The 'Bleus' are trained by Nicolas Mermet-Maréchal, a professional coach of the French Football Federation. He has high hopes for his team, but does see some room for improvement. "Our defence is great, but we need to create more opportunities to score, we should attack more."

The players are members of the Navy, The Army and the Air Force as well as the Gendarmerie, the Police Force that's part of the French Army.

After their long flight from France, the soldiers have little time to rest. They will play their first match against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday, two days before the official opening ceremony. The other opponents in the same group are Brazil and Bahrain. All great teams, so it will require some team effort to get through to the next stages, a realistic goal, according to the team's manager Major François of the 17th Paratroopers Regiment. "We have been preparing this tournament for over a year. All this work starts paying off now, and we are very motivated. I believe we will win at least a medal," he said.

The men will try to rival at least their female colleagues. The French Military Ladies became the World Champion in 2016. At the last Military World Games, in 2015 in Mungyeong in South Korea, the French Delegation took 41 Medals home.