The two teams that contested the famous 2006 World Cup final are in action in the Nations League on Friday night and even without Kylian Mbappe, the French are strong favourites to win. Here are some facts, stats, team news and the all-important betting tip ahead of it.
Betting Tip: Assist King Oliseh to Get Another
France beat both Turkey and Belgium 1-0 over the past week, but that win over Turkey came at a cost: Kylian Mbappe got injured while scoring, was subbed off, missed the win over Belgium, and is now out for at least two more weeks.
Zinedine Zidane afforded himself the luxury of resting several other players who would normally start on Monday, but when they came off the bench, they proved too good for Belgium, with one of them, Michael Oliseh, netting a late winner.
As for Italy, it’s hard to know what to make of them so far under Roberto Mancini. They lost 2-0 to Belgium but hit back to beat Turkey 4-1 away, though that result did somewhat flatter them because Turkey had just as many chances as they did.
At first glance, France are pretty short favourites at 1.4, but they’ve been one of the best sides in the world for the past few years, are ranked third in the world, have as good a squad as anyone, and won their last two games without conceding, so maybe it’s a fair price after all against an Italy side in rebuild mode.
We fancy France to score a couple here and there are plenty of different goals markets to play if you agree with that view, but we’d rather focus on a particular player, and it’s that man Oliseh.
Though he scored that vital winner last time out, he’s better known for his assists: after all, he provided seven at the World Cup in eight games, a new World Cup record, with the quirk that five of those were in setting up Mbappé.
But Oliseh has four assists already this season for club and country- curiously all in different competitions – and one of those was an assist against Turkey for, you guessed it, Mbappe!
The Bayern man will surely start here after only coming off the bench the other day, and though there’s no Mbappe to set up this time, there’s Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue and plenty of others waiting for a magical pass from former Crystal Palace player Oliseh. Let’s hope so.
- Bet: Back Michael Oliseh to provide an assist
- Odds: 2.5 (at the time of writing)
Did You Know?
Eight players from the Rennes academy are now in the current France setup:
- Eduardo Camavinga – Real Madrid
- Ousmane Dembélé – Paris Saint-Germain
- Désiré Doué – Paris Saint-Germain
- Adrien Truffert – Bournemouth
- Jérémy Jacquet – Rennes
- Andy Diouf – Inter Milan
- Lucas Da Cunha – Como
- Estéban Lepaul – Rennes
So the Rennes Academy is one to rival the very best in the world right now, including even that of Barcelona.
Fun Fact
3-1 is quite an unusual score in football, but certainly not in this fixture, with the last four instalments all ending 3-1!
France won 3-1 away in 2016, 3-1 at home in 2018 and then by that same scoreline again away in Italy in 2024. But in September 2024, Italy were the ones winning 3-1, in France.
It’s 9.0 that the French will win it by that score again this time, and 27.0 that Italy will.
