FRANCE FLIRT WITH CHAMPS CURSE
The curse of the defending champions will hang over injury-hit France when they open their World Cup title defence in a group match against Australia on Tuesday — a repeat of the start to their triumphant 2018 campaign. A VAR penalty and a deflected Paul Pogba strike gave Didier Deschamps's side a solid start with a 2-1 win over the Socceroos four years ago, and they were soon firing on all cylinders as they marched to their second title in Moscow.
France were famously upset by World Cup debutants Senegal to open their title defence in 2002, however, and since then only Brazil in 2006 have won their first finals match as reigning champions.
"Now all the teams want to win against France. All the teams want to beat us," defender Lucas Hernandez said on Friday.
"We're confident in the qualities we have. It's going to be a real fight. Once we have started our tournament against Australia, we will know more."
The French in 2002, Italy in 2010, Spain in 2014 and Germany in 2018 all followed their stuttering starts as champions by bombing out in the group stage. France's preparations for Qatar have been far from smooth with a poor run of form and the loss of influential midfielders Pogba and N'golo Kante to injury.
Another hammer blow followed on Saturday when Ballon D'OR winning striker Karim Benzema was ruled out of the tournament by a thigh injury.
Deschamps does, however, have the luxury of being able to call on Olivier Giroud to reunite with Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann in an attack that served him well in 2018. —