Today at noon, France plays its first World Cup match against Australia in Kazan. The goal is to make a successful entry into the competition.
If France can harbor ambitions in the World Cup, it is largely thanks to its two forwards: Les Bleus rely on their leader Antoine Griezmann and on the incredible precocity of Kylian Mbappé to kick off their competition.
Facing them will be the Australian Socceroos, who are now regulars at the World Cup, with mixed success (round of 16 in 2006, but failures in the first round in 2010 and 2014) and led by Bert van Marwijk, far from being an unknown. The Australian coach, freshly arrived on the bench after Ange Postecoglou’s departure, was the coach of the Netherlands during the 2010 World Cup final lost to Spain. Quite the interesting coincidence, he is also the coach who helped Saudi Arabia qualify for the World Cup in Russia. And it was by managing Saudi Arabia that he pushed Australia to pass through the playoffs to secure their ticket for the 2018 World Cup.
Winning the three points in the first match provides few guarantees for the rest of the competition, but not securing them reduces them even more. Especially against the nation assumed to be the weakest in this Group C, before facing Peru and Denmark, ranked 11th and 12th in the FIFA rankings. All the more so since the European vice-champions officially aim for the semifinals, and President Emmanuel Macron has set them the goal of achieving a “second star,” twenty years after the one in 1998. To be converted.
HUGO LLORIS: “Mentally, we are going to wake up with this excitement inside us and this little knot in our stomach. The morning will pass very quickly. We have often repeated among ourselves the importance of the first match to start the competition well, for confidence and to give ourselves momentum and a dynamic.”
