The French team did the job. Opposed to the modest team of Gibraltar (201And in the FIFA ranking at 211) On Friday 16 June, in the Euro 2024 qualifiers, the Blues won quite easily by 3 to 0. They thus started the last window in the national team before the summer break in the best possible way, maintaining leadership in group B of the European qualifiers. This victory, combined with previous successes against the Netherlands (4-0) and the Republic of Ireland (1-0), allows them to continue their immaculate career.
On Friday, everything promised the Blues to sign a festival on the lawn of Portugal’s Estadio Algarve: Gibraltar don’t have a stadium big enough to host an international match on their soil. And the first few minutes must have made the club manager fear the worst. Squad 54, Julius Ribas. From the third minute, the bubbly Uruguayan coach could already see, helplessly, Olivier Giroud catapulting a cross from Kingsley Coman with his head directly into the cages.
A goal that has allowed Giroud to celebrate its 123 yearsAnd selection, as much as Thierry Henry. He also took the opportunity to further consolidate his place at the top of the French team’s goalscoring chart by signing a 54And goal with the shirt hit by the rooster. Kylian Mbappé has this record in his sights and he tried hard during the meeting to continue to grow his capital with the Blues, the one we mainly talked about before the meeting for his letter sent to PSGin which he announced his intention not to extend his contract beyond the 2023-2024 season.
Greece before going on vacation
Unsuccessful in the match, the attacker relied on a penalty and a close-range shot on the post at half-time to unlock his counter-attack in the game (45And). Yet, the Blues did not get carried away as the 1,300 French fans present in Portugal would have liked. A 2-0 half-time scoreline indeed looked like the lesser evil for Gibraltars, having great difficulty containing Kylian Mbappé, Antoine Griezmann or Kingsley Coman, and finally having conceded 32 shots in the match.
Even more than the first, the second half will not leave an indelible memory in the history of France, despite the final success against his team by defender Aymen Mouelhi following a cross from Kylian Mbappé (78′)And). ” Satisfied? We have come to win, to be as efficient as possible. We only scored three goals… Obviously, we could have done better.” declared coach Didier Deschamps at the end of the meeting, to the microphones of TF1. “The intentions were good, the readiness was lacking o [de l’]acceleration to put [la sélection de Gibraltar] in trouble. (…) My players did the job. »
If ‘DD’ certainly has enough to work in training before facing a completely different opponent Greece at the Stade de France on Monday 19 June, he can at least be satisfied that he didn’t see his side fall into a trap against Gibraltar. Since taking charge of the Blues in 2012, the former midfielder has often seen disappointment at this time of year. The French had thus lost against Turkey in 2019 (2-0), or against Sweden in 2017 (2-1).
