When Antoine Griezmann pulls on his No 7 jersey on Saturday, the feeling could not be more familiar.

His club situation might have been irregular for a while, but there is nothing more constant than his presence for France. That World Cup quarter-final against England will, we assume, see Griezmann represent his country for a 72nd consecutive game.

It is a crazy statistic.

Over a five-and-a-half-year period, he has started every single France fixture, be it the World Cup final, a qualifier in Kazakhstan, or a friendly against Bolivia. He has never been injured, never had a twinge or a moan, never needed a rest. He is France’s whirring dynamo. Just watch him play — light on his feet, on the move all the time, eyes scanning for where to be and how to affect the game.

Griezmann has also, in this World Cup, taken on a role of particular importance. When it was clear France needed a rethink because of the injuries ruling N’Golo Kante and Paul Pogba out of the tournament, few imagined the key to restructuring midfield in a workable way was one of the country’s all-time top scorers (he is third on the list). Yet coach Didier Deschamps has found a midfield solution by asking one of his most trusted players to alter his game.

Griezmann has remodelled himself in a deeper role, lending technical security, game intelligence and tireless work rate to help Aurelien Tchouameni and Adrien Rabiot. “It’s quite freeing,” Griezmann says, “being there in the relationship between defence and forwards, defensively switched-on and helping my team-mates offensively.”

France’s strategy during this tournament — something that has had to click very quickly given how their new defensive and midfield units have been, to an extent, thrown together — owes a lot to Griezmann being a central hub. It might not catch the eye quite as much as Kylian Mbappe (well, nothing does), but it matters. Griezmann is the lesser-sung hero of the defending champions’ run to the last eight.