Dashing without being exciting, the French team has a second success in a row, a first since the combo of Chile and Luxembourg friendlies in March and June before the Euro. In Germany, at the Euro, she has never won two matches in a row or on penalties against Portugal (0-0) after having defeated Belgium (1-0). It is also the Red Devils that she meets this Monday in Brussels to confirm her slight improvement. Not necessarily in the game but in the offensive register at least, while Kylian Mbappé, left at the disposal of Real Madrid, and Antoine Griezmann, retired, are missing from this first fall gathering.
In content, the Blues did not raise hearts, rarely managing to multiply stifling movements against an Israeli national team weak in its ways of defending, its pressing, proceeding in counterattacks most of the time on losses of ball falling from the sky like a gift. Like that of Michael Olise, which was to lead to everyone’s surprise an equalizer from Omri Gandelman (1-1, 24th) after a series of individual failures in marking or placement, from Jules Koundé to William Saliba via Aurélien Tchouaméni.
The “locals”, in blue, scored with their first shot on target. It was Eduardo Camavinga, very interesting in his ball handling and his directions, who put his team in front with a long shot that Omri Glazer, closer to a Jean-Claude Dusse than to a goalkeeper save, had accompanied in his cages (0-1, 7th) by wrapping himself around the ball.
A victory that does not mask the difficulties
If the Blues showed some signs of vitality up front, Randal Kolo Muani and Christopher Nkunku (scorer for the 2-1) had a lot to do with it, through their races, their play in small spaces and a good dose of desire. They do not belong to the category of the best strikers in the world, far from it, but they had something extra, this determination which the A lacks in 2024 and made their exits so painful. In football as elsewhere, boredom takes the elevator and pleasure takes the stairs and reversing the curves will take time.
In the second half, the attacking quartet will be deployed differently with Nkunku becoming playmaker, Ousmane Dembélé moving to the left – a rarity – and Olise converted to right winger. Highly anticipated, the new nugget of Bayern Munich has quite clearly missed its mark, with considerable waste and a nonchalance which recalls the dilettantism of above-average players who forget to hurt themselves and to aim correctly. At the end of his third selection, the phenomenon remains classic in a squad which had 18 caps on average per player, a sign of the change of era that Didier Deschamps is operating, as much by choice as by obligation in the context of the absentees, the captain and his former vice-captain destroying the scorers with their 223 cumulative international matches.
This logical victory masks nothing of the tricolor difficulties in maintaining constant pressure on Israel, in delivering a successful spectacle, with crosses, presence and weight in the surface for a goalkeeper put to torture if not at the end of the end, with goals from Mattéo Guendouzi and Bradley Barcola, two substitute scorers, when Ben Simon’s protégés had nothing left in their socks. This scenario has not existed before, referring to a France team that is still too timid in its intentions. It may be growing but it grows less quickly than the monotony that always accompanies it.
Match sheet
Half time: 1-2.
Referee: M. Dabanovic (MNE).
Buts. Israel: Gandelman (24th). France: Camavinga (7th), Nkunku (28th), Guendouzi (87th), Barcola (89th).
Warning. France : Camavinga (18e).
Israel: Glazer (cap.) – Feingold, Nachmias, Baltaxa – Haziza (Biton, 76e), Jaber (Gropper, 76e) – Gloukh, Abu Fani (Azoulay, 67e), Gandelman (Peretz, 62e) – Abada, Baribo (Khalaili, 62e ). Cell. : Ben Shimon.
France : Maignan – Koundé, Konate, Saliba, T. Hernandez (Worthy, 90th), Tchouameni (cap., Zaire-Emery, 90th), Camavinga (Fofana, 70th), Dembélé, Olise (Barcola, 70th), Nkunku (Guendouzi, 77th). ) – The Color of the Muani. Cell. : Deschamps.
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