This wasn’t really the anticipated scenario. On Thursday, we still imagined the France team ahead of Italy in this group 2 of the League of Nations before the final confrontation. For this to happen, Belgium would have had to stand up to the Squadra Azzurra and France would have had to have Israel at home, which was not unthinkable. None of that happened.
The Blues offered an insipid performance to the very few spectators at the Stade de France (0-0) while the Italians managed to trap the Red Devils thanks to an early goal from Tonali (0-1).
Sunday evening, Didier Deschamps’ men, still deprived of Kylian Mbappé, will therefore have to seriously raise their level of play to regain the lead of the group. With 10 points in the standings and a goal difference of +4, they will be obliged to beat Italy (13 points, +7) with a two-goal difference. The Transalpines won in style two months ago (1-3) at the Parc des Princes.
As a reminder, this first place allows them to play their quarter-final return at home – a novelty in this League of Nations.
Not without controversy, UEFA has in fact chosen to add two new matches to the calendar of this second-rate competition (March 20 and 23). The semi-finals and the final will be organized as a single match in a host country (from June 4 to 8), as in previous editions.
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