FOOTBALL journalist Adam Goodwin (@AGJournalism) runs the rule over Tuesday night's Nations League clash between France and Germany.
France v Germany | Tuesday 16th October 2018, 19:45 | Sky Sports
Newly crowned world champions France have the chance to push Germany towards relegation from their UEFA Nations League group.
France
Since winning the World Cup in the summer, France have won four points in their first two Nations League games and will be gunning to be the first nation to ever win this competition. A 0-0 stalemate with the Germans earlier in this competition was followed by a 2-1 win over Holland a shaky 2-2 draw with Iceland.
Kylian Mbappe is continuing to impress after winning the Young Player of the Tournament at the World Cup and has scored in both of his last two France appearances. He’s scored 10 goals in seven games in all competitions for PSG so far this season (which is absolutely ridiculous, by the way) and he’ll be buzzing to pull on a France shirt again.
Mbappe will also be relishing the chance to go up against Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng, who have certainly lost a yard of pace, and his speed could cause this Germany defence some serious problems.
Germany
In comparison to Les Blues, Germany look to be in a bit of a rut.
It’s the first time Die Mannschaft have failed to score in three competitive matches in their history and have just three wins in their last 12 internationals. It seems to be that scoring goals is their problem and they’ve scored just twice from 107 shots across their last five competitive games.
Thomas Muller is the only player in the squad to have scored more than 13 goals for Germany, and you could argue that he’s well beyond his best.
It’s clear that the squad needs freshening up, but Joachim Low looks reluctant to do so. They have no players under the age of 22 in the squad and the majority of the squad is heading into it’s 30s. This is something that France seem to be doing well, and maybe Low needs to look at what Tuesday’s opposition are doing to avoid getting the boot…
The betting angle
I’m happy to play it pretty simple with this one and back France to win at 3/4 with Bet 365. Both these sides are in completely different form and, at the moment, there should be only one winner here.
I’ll also have a punt on Kylian Mbappe to score, bearing in mind he’s in such good form. You can back him to score anytime at 8/5 with Unibet and I think that’s more than generous when he’s been scoring goals for fun recently.
Best Bets
France v Germany – France to win (3/4 Bet365)
France v Germany – Kylian Mbappe to score at anytime (8/5 Unibet)
