The last time that Kylian Mbappé missed four consecutive matches for the France team was in the fall of 2019 and Didier Deschamps strongly believed in a Raphaël Varane-Clément Lenglet central hinge.
What did it look like the French team without Kylian Mbappé? While the captain of the Blues is absent for a second consecutive gathering, we have to go back to the international windows of September and October 2019 to see Didier Deschamps cope without the Bondy prodigy in four matches in a row. The PSG player suffered a muscle injury in August. Five years ago, the French selection had a completely different face. Corentin Tolisso, Moussa Sissoko and Blaise Matuidi were still in the group and the central hinge was composed of Raphaël Varane and Clément Lenglet.
“La Dèche” had thus aligned its Varane-Lenglet pair in the four matches in question, 4-1 victories against Albania, 3-0 against Andorra and 1-0 in Iceland, then a 1-1 draw in front of the Turkey at the Stade de France, in the Euro 2020 qualifiers.
Lenglet played for Barça
Clément Lenglet was not, however, the most imposing defender in La Liga, under the colors of FC Barcelona, but his coach appreciated his reading of the game and his left-footed recovery. Lenglet thus made six starts during the second part of 2019. Presnel Kimpembe regained his place to the left of Raphaël Varane for the Euro played in 2021, but Lenglet was aligned within a three-way central defense between the two 2018 world champions during the epic round of 16 lost to Switzerland on penalties in Bucharest.
During this fall of 2019, Benjamin Pavard and Léo Dubois were the right backs of the EDF, Lucas Hernandez and Lucas Digne the left backs. Steve Mandanda had also taken advantage of the absence of Hugo Lloris to start in the two matches in October. In the offensive sector, led by a boss-sized Antoine Griezmann since Euro 2016, Olivier Giroud, Kingsley Coman and even Wissam Ben Yedder and Jonathan Ikoné had shaken the nets. Nabil Fekir was still Deschamps' luxury understudy.
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