Doha: The curse of the defending champions will hold over injury-hit France after they open their World Cup title defence in a bunch match towards Australia on Tuesday – a repeat of the begin to their triumphant 2018 marketing campaign.A VAR penalty and a deflected Paul Pogba strike gave Didier Deschamps’s facet a strong begin with a 2-1 win over the Socceroos 4 years in the past, and so they have been quickly firing on all cylinders as they marched to their second title in Moscow.
France have been famously upset by World Cup debutants Senegal to open their title defence in 2002, nonetheless, and since then solely Brazil in 2006 have received their first finals match as reigning champions.
“Now all of the groups need to win towards France. All of the groups need to beat us,” defender Lucas Hernandez stated on Friday.
“We’re assured within the qualities we now have. It is going to be an actual battle. As soon as we now have began our event towards Australia, we’ll know extra.”
The French in 2002, Italy in 2010, Spain in 2014 and Germany in 2018 all adopted their stuttering begins as champions by bombing out within the group stage.
France’s preparations for Qatar have been removed from easy with a poor run of type and the lack of influential midfielders Pogba and N’Golo Kante to damage.
One other hammer blow adopted on Saturday when Ballon D’Or profitable striker Karim Benzema was dominated out of the event by a thigh damage.
Deschamps does, nonetheless, have the posh of having the ability to name on Olivier Giroud to reunite with Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann in an assault that served him nicely in 2018.
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has a lot much less confirmed high quality to select from and can be seeking to Australia’s well-known physicality and preventing spirit to ship a primary World Cup finals win for the nation since 2010.
Failing that, with Group D matches towards Denmark and Tunisia to observe, Australia can be determined to keep away from a repeat of the 4-0 thrashing by the hands of Germany that derailed their 2010 marketing campaign earlier than it actually obtained began.
Whereas Arnold’s facet struggled to qualify – solely stamping their ticket by way of a penalty shootout in an intercontinental playoff towards Peru in June – he has included a handful of inexperienced however extremely assured attackers in his squad.
“It is our first World Cup and we actually need to shock the world,” stated winger Awer Mabil. “I believe we now have the standard to do this, we simply have to indicate our means.”