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Aron Wright - June 18, 2018
France vs Peru
World Cup 2018 Group C
Date: Thursday, 21st June 2018
Kick-off at 16:00 UK/ 17:00 CET
Venue: Yekaterinburg Central Stadium.
France are lucky to have 3 points in their bag and on another day could have ended up on the losing end. The must debated VAR has been so kind of them in the penalty that lead to the opening goal and then lady lucky strike with minutes left for final whistle in the second goal.
Nonetheless, they must be happy to have won the game 2-1, since this is only their second win in a World Cup opener in 20 years. On the flip side, there are lot of criticisms on Deschamps for getting his formation and playing personal wrong.
Peru gave a whole hearted performance in their return to World Cup in 36 years and could have took the lead in the first half itself. But it was one of those days that luck abandon them.
Ricardo Gareca’s men swarmed the Danish penalty box for majority of the time, but their finishing was off. The key moment was when the highly rated Christian Cueva strike the penalty well above the cross bar. Peru ended up losing 1-0, courtesy of a second half goals from Yussuf Poulsen whose foul gave them the penalty in the first half.
It is ringing changes after France failed to find any rhythm in the 2-1 win over Australia.
The key change is expected in the midfield where Corentin Tolisso makes way for the experience of Blaise Matuidi.
Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele is another player who failed to come to the party last week and it will be interesting to see if the inform Nabil Fekir gets the nod here.
Lloris – Lucas, Varane, Umtiti, Sidibe – Kante, Pogba, Matuidi – Fekir, Griezmann, Mbappe.
Ricardo Gareca omitted the country’s of all-time leading scorer Paolo Guerrero from the starting line-up against Denmark. He is expected to start here at the expense of Edison Flores.
Any wholesale changes are not expected to the team’s starting line-up unless to cope with late fitness issues.
Gallese – Trauco, Ramos, Rodriguez, Advincula – Tapia, Yotun – Carillo, Cueva, Farfan – Guerrero.
France is one of the teams that disappointed on matchday 1, still got lucky with 3 points in their bag. It has to be said Didier Deschamps got his selections wrong and we can expect him to tick the boxes against a superior South American side.
Peru, unlucky to lose against Denmark, but they have only themselves to blame for the outcome. Unlike his opposite number, Ricardo Gareca got his formation and playing personal right and poor finishing has to be blamed for the defeat. The former Argentina striker will be coy on an improved showing from his key men on Thursday.
This game has to go down as another interesting clash since both sides have quality upfront and their defense is easily breach-able. We have seen France conceding a silly penalty to Australia and Peru giving Danish players plenty of space to run at them.
Based on these facts, our main pick for this match is both teams to score to over 2.5 goals. Regarding the full-time result, I am 50-50 on either team’s chances, this is often the case when I am analysing team’s with brittle defense units.
France vs Peru Predictions from Statistical Analysis, ©LeagueLane®
