For a second successive edition of the men’s FIFA World Cup, France and Australia will face off in their first respective group stage games of the tournament. This time, reigning champions France are expected to improve upon their 2-1 defeat of Australia in 2018, as they seek to become the first back-to-back winners since Brazil managed the feat in 1962 and continue Europe’s domination of this event with what could be a fifth consecutive World Cup triumph for a UEFA nation.
France’s lead-up to this tournament was far from ideal, winning just one of their six UEFA Nations League A games as favourites (D2, L3), narrowly missing relegation from their group and subsequently dropping to fourth in the world rankings as a result. A goal of reaching the last four has been set by FA President Noël Le Graët, who publicly declared that a contract extension for manager Didier Deschamps “will be up to him” if France make the semi-finals or better.
It is also the second straight World Cup in which Australia had to qualify via the inter-confederation playoffs which, along with their decline from being the highest-ranked Asian nation in June 2018 (#34) to the fourth-highest in November 2022 (#38), illustrates their overall slide in world football. It will be the first World Cup for manager Graham Arnold who has been in charge for four years, but he has plenty of experience through his time as an assistant during the 2006 and 2010 editions.
Arnold survived some intense calls for his sacking in April following a dreadful end to their Asian qualification phase (W1, D3, L2), but vindicated the FA’s faith in him by securing tight playoff victories against the UAE (2-1) and Peru (penalties after 0-0), most famously making the genius move of subbing on ‘penalty specialist’ goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne for the successful shootout against the latter.
Players to watch: France’s Kylian Mbappé could cement his status as a potential all-time great at just 23 by getting his hands on a second World Cup, and is primed to contribute after being involved in 11 goals (G7, A4) during his last six games for club-side PSG. Since returning home, Jason Cummings has been a revelation, adding his maiden international goal against New Zealand in Australia’s last match to nine goalscoring appearances for his club Central Coast Mariners since March.
Hot streak: Australia have not conceded 3+ goals against any opposition in their last 39 matches dating back to March 2018.
World Cup trivia: France produced the worst title defence in World Cup history when failing to score a single goal during the 2002 edition (D1, L2).
10:27 game clock, 17:46 video clock . It may have looked innocuous the way he injured his knee or something in that area . But the fact is in almost all sports (even to a significant degree in NFL style tackle football) , 70% of knee injuries including the worst – an acl ligament tear – are non contact injuries . Your running real fast, you try to stop, your foot slams on the breaks but your knee can’t take it . any sudden stop, cut, twist , coming down from a jump et cetera, can cause a serious knee injury . Today knee replacement surgery is quite advanced but it takes around a half a year to be ready to play again . Ka Ka of Brazil was up there with Messi and Ronaldo in the 2000s . He had a bad knee injury, had surgery , but he was never the same again . He retired at age 29. Wayne Rooney of England had a bad knee injury . But after surgery and physical rehab his knee was as good as new
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