L’Équipe report in today’s issue that the France team has not practised penalties ahead of their last 16 clash against Poland this afternoon.
Les Bleus coaching staff do not have a penalty exercise in particular mapped out either, with Didier Deschamps believing that it would be impossible to replicate the conditions of a high-stakes penalty shoot-out in a training session.
The move could be risky in the wake of France’s Euro 2021 elimination at the hands of Switzerland, on top of the fact they are facing one of the World Cup’s in-form players in Wojciech Szczęsny, who has already stopped two spot-kicks at the tournament so far.
On top of this comes the recent difficulties of some of the France players – Antoine Griezmann, for example, has missed six of his last eight, while Marcus Thuram – who scored his against Switzerland – has missed three out of five and Kylian Mbappé has only scored 11 in 15. However, Olivier Giroud has yet to miss from the spot since 2012, while Ousmane Dembélé has scored all but one he has taken in his career.
GFFN | Raphaël Jucobin
