France play Italy in a Pre World Cup friendly
Kick-off : 9:00 PM (Local)
Venue : Allianz Riviera, Nice
Italy will not be featuring in this year’s FIFA world cup as due to a poor qualifying campaign but will still be playing friendly matches before the world cup begins. They have lined up three friendly matches out of which they have played one against Saudi Arabia. Two more matches include games against France and The Netherlands.
Italy will look to build a team for the future and gain experience from playing in such a big game against France.
On the other hand, The French will be out their to warm-up more ahead of the world cup and their first game against Australia. France played well three nights ago on Monday against the Republic of Ireland in a friendly and are on the right path.
France after playing the Italians have got one more match left against the United States.
In recent times France have dominated the fixture against the Italians so we can expect another strong showing from them.
Team news and possible line-ups
Hugo Lloris will captain France on Friday night against Italy. While Antoine Griezmann, Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kante, Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele are all available and will play.
Also Raphael Varane might be rested here after his UEFA Champions League exploits last weekend.
As for Italy, Leonardo Bonucci will captain them. Whereas Mario Balotelli, Lorenzo Insigne and Gianluigi Donnarumma are all available and will play.
France XI : Lloris, Sidibe, Umtiti, Rami, Mendy, Kante, Pogba, Dembele, Griezmann, Mbappe, Giroud.
Italy XI : Donnarumma, Zappacosta, Bonucci, Romagnoli, Criscito, Florenzi, Bonaventura, Jorginho, Insigne, Berardi, Balotelli.
Prediction
I expect a 2-2 draw here.
