France look for three points as they host Belarus
Kick-off : 8:45 PM (Local)
Venue : Stade de France, Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis
France will be looking to get those three important points to ensure qualification to next year’s world cup. They are currently top of their group.
The French haven’t been convincing in this campaign so far as they suffered a shock loss to Sweden and were held by minnows Luxembourg.
Belarus, on the other hand, are at the bottom of the group. Their only success in this campaign have been a 2-1 victory over Bulgaria.
But France needs to be careful as the last time these two met in this campaign, it was a 0-0 draw.
Team news and possible line-ups
Belarus coach Igor Kriushenko does not have any injury concerns but have a few other roster issues.
He will be without three key first-team players who will miss out this game due to suspensions.
Aleksei Rios, Nikolai Signevich and Sergei Balanovich are the players who are suspended and are likely to be replaced by Igor Burko, Anton Saroka and Artem Bykov.
As for France, N’Golo Kante and Paul Pogba will not be available as due to injury. Adrien Rabiot is expected to be recruited into the line-up in Kante’s place.
Blaise Matuidi is expected to retain his place after scoring the winner last time out. While Hugo Lloris will captain the side.
Belarus XI : Chernik, Burko, Politevich, Yanushkevich, Volodko, Maevski, Dragun, Bykov, Karnitski, Stasevich, Saroka.
France XI : Lloris, Sidibe, Varane, Umtiti, Digne, Matuidi, Rabiot, Tolisso, Grierzmann, Lacazette, Mbappe.
Prediction
On current form it will not be hard to predict a France win. I expect Les Bleus to win 2-0.
