Croatia – France
Croatia and France will go head to head in the Nations League on Wednesday. The two finalists from the World Cup will face each other at the Maksimir Stadium in the capital Zagreb. This should be exciting, so let’s take a look.
In Nations League’s Group 3 Portugal and France are leading the standings with 7 points won by each of the two teams. Right now Portugal are ahead because of a better goal difference. Croatia are third with 3 points while Sweden do not have any points. Croatia could hardly fight with Portugal and France for the first place, but what they can do is keep the third spot and remain in League A of the Nations League.
After two consecutive losses Croatia finally won their first Nations League game for the 2020 season. Zlatko Dalic’ team hosted Sweden in Zagreb and fought hard for a difficult 2-1 win. Nikola Vlasic and Andrej Kramaric scored for the World Cup runners-up.
France need to win in Zagreb in order to remain in contention for the first place. Few days ago Didier Deschamps’ team hosted Portugal in Paris, but we saw a dissapointing 0-0 draw at the Stade de France. It was a repeat of the Euro 2016 final, but sadly we didn’t see any goals.
Didier Deschamps used a 4-3-1-2 formation with Antoine Griezmann behind Olivier Giroud and Kylian Mbappe, but no goals were scored by both teams. Against Croatia Deschamps could refresh the team a little bit with players like Camavinga, Upamecano, Coman and Martial. He has many options to choose from.
That’s the preview for the Nations League game between Croatia and France on Wednesday. In this group France already won once against the Balkan team, but in Zagreb it’s going to be a little bit more difficult. Les Bleus remain favourites, though.