Rested France faces Poland – CNW Community
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — France, the reigning World Cup champions, has been warned by coach Didier Deschamps to not underestimate Poland and star Robert Lewandowski within the knockout spherical Sunday.
Les Blues breezed by the group stage and clinched a spot within the spherical of 16 with a sport to spare, which allowed Deschamps to relaxation his stars in France’s meaningless last first spherical sport. 9 substitutes began within the 1-0 loss to Tunisia, and Adrien Rabiot, Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Antonie Griezmann all got here off the bench late within the sport.
France, with recent legs, is the overwhelming favourite to beat Poland and is the primary defending World Cup champion to succeed in the spherical of 16 since Brazil in 2006. France is 5-0 within the first knockout spherical because the stage was launched to the World Cup in 1986.
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4 years earlier, Poland tied its World Cup-best third-place end with a 3-2 victory over … France. However Poland, which is within the knockout spherical for the primary time in 36 years, has not crushed France since a win in a pleasant 51 days after that victory.
Poland has three losses and 4 attracts within the seven conferences since, the final match in 2011.
As a result of it’s been 11 years because the two groups final performed, Deschamps mentioned France should take Poland significantly.
“It’s not a workforce we’re used to assembly. They’ve skilled gamers,” the France coach mentioned. “If there may be one identify to face out, it’s Lewandowski, he’s among the best strikers on the earth. Nevertheless it’s not simply him, it’s a workforce that has good group, a great athletic presence. We have now three observers right here who’re following them carefully. We can have all the main points. Don’t underestimate this workforce.”
Poland has had a powerful match behind Wojciech Szczesny, the Juventus goalkeeper who saved penalties in opposition to Saudi Arabia and Argentina. His second save was in opposition to none apart from Argentina nice Lionel Messi and his 18 saves this match are greater than some other goalkeeper.
Lewandowksi believes the important thing to beating France is thru preparation and, frankly, enjoying higher than Poland did in its 2-0 loss to Argentina. Poland additionally drew 0-0 with Mexico and beat Saudi Arabia 2-0.
“Reaching the spherical of 16 is a superb achievement for us. It’ll be tough in opposition to France, we’ll want to stay targeted,” Lewandowski mentioned. “I do know that it wasn’t our greatest efficiency (in opposition to Argentina), but when we put together higher, if we are able to work on enhancing what didn’t work, and if we give our all, we’ll undoubtedly have an opportunity.”