This Friday, defending champions France were surprised at home by Denmark at the opening of the Nations League, conceding a 1-2 defeat at the Stade de France despite Karim Benzema’s 37th goal with the Blues.
After Benzema’s opener (51st), six days after his Champions League victory with Real Madrid in the same stadium, France conceded a double from Andreas Cornelius (68th and 88th).
The Blues cracked in the last moments of their duel and recorded their first defeat of the season, the first failure since the Euro last summer, and ended their series of nine matches without defeat.
They are now third in the group two lengths behind Denmark and Austria, victorious in Croatia (3-0), where the Blues are making their next trip next Monday.
A messy first period
Without Didier Deschamps, who left with his grieving family, but with his deputy Guy Stéphan at the helm, the French team showed up at kick-off with a typical group to try to win against the 11th nation. in the FIFA rankings.
She first stammered her football in the first ten minutes, being technically clumsy and not very worrying, until relying on Hugo Lloris not to find herself in danger too quickly.
The blue house was still most often solid, with the precious help in the middle of Aurélien Tchouaméni, imperial in the air, and N’Golo Kanté, author of a strike on the post (80th). And Benzema’s ball-to-foot zigzags were a delight, as in this action where he eliminated four players before seeing his shot blocked by a defender (13th).
Mbappé out through injury
The Madrid native managed to deceive Kasper Schmeichel for the first time, but he was in an offside position (15th). He did it again, successfully, after a swaying dribble in the Scandinavian area on a heeling service from Christopher Nkunku, who came into play at the break to replace the injured Kylian Mbappé.
The exit of the Parisian, like that of Raphaël Varane at the hour mark, is the big black spot of the evening in Saint-Denis. The 23-year-old striker, grimacing while holding his knee, requested the intervention of the medical staff just before half-time.