The France team continues its faultless. In a sold-out Stade de France, Didier Deschamps’ men closed their rich 2022-2023 exercise, marked by a world final in Qatar in December and a flawless start to 2023, with a difficult victory against the Greece (1-0), thanks to a penalty from Kylian Mbappé.
The Blues, in numerical superiority at the end of the match after the exclusion of Konstaninos Mavropanos (69th), won on a penalty from their captain Mbappé (55th), already a scorer in this exercise on Friday against Gibraltar in Faro (3-0) . With 40 goals in the selection, the Parisian star is now on the heels of Michel Platini (41 goals) in the glorious ranking of scorers in the history of the France team. At just 24…
Over the course of a controlled but choppy evening, the French took a few blows, suffered a few shirt pulling incidents and some even ended up bleeding (Antoine Griezmann). But this bitter battle was finally won by the French team, in what sometimes looked like a tribute to the Rugby Top 14 final, played on Saturday evening in the same stadium.
To respond to the physical impact of Greece, Didier Deschamps had lined up a strong team, with the return of several executives from recent months such as Mike Maignan, Dayot Upamecano and Jules Koundé, exempt from the first match against Gibraltar. But his most striking choice was to launch Randal Kolo Muani in attack, instead of Friday’s striker Olivier Giroud. More restless and faster than his elder, the Frankfurt player nevertheless had a complicated evening in the middle of the dense Greek defense, even if he ended up causing the red card of Mavropanos.
Unsurprisingly, the Blues were therefore above all threatening on the wings. That of Kingsley Coman, renewed on the right after his good performance on Friday, and that of Mbappé, much more in his legs on his left side after a non-match on the Faro side. Greece, the 52nd nation in the world which dreams of participating in its first international tournament since 2014, responded with unfailing solidarity and a good dose of aggressiveness, a characteristic spotted in recent days by Deschamps.