Kylian Mbappe scored a beautiful solo goal after dazzling past two Sweden defenders to give Les Bleus a 1-0 victory in their Nations League A Group 3 clash on Saturday, while England struggle for 1-0 win at Iceland.
Sweden had managed to keep the world champions at bay for the first 40 minutes until Mbappe broke the deadlock.
Sweden came close to grabbing an equalizer in the 90th-minute when Leipzig man Emil Forsberg forced a fine save from Hugo Lloris before Marcus Berg fires wide a deflected shot off a corner kick.
Anthony Martial made his first appearance for the France squad for the first time since March 2018 after he came on for Mbappe in the second half.
The Manchester United star was subsequently brought down by fellow club-mate Victor Lindelof, gifting France a late penalty.
However, with the final kick of the game, Antoine Griezmann fired the spot-kick over the bar.
Speaking on the victory, France head coach Didier Deschamps said: “Not everything was perfect. It’s a new system that worked pretty well, [but] we could have done better in attacking terms,” he told French TV channel M6.
Mbappe also came out to say he was pleased with his coach’s approach to the game.
“I like being closer to goal in this system, it makes me happy. I think its a system that suits the characteristics of other players in the team too, and we’ll work on it to make it work,” he said.
Elsewhere in group 3, England narrowly edge-out a dogged Iceland team with a Raheem Sterling 90th-minute penalty.
In a tensed game, Manchester City full-back Kyle Walker saw red as the three Lions struggled to break the Iceland team down.
They had a series of goal-scoring chances but failed to take make them count until finally, the breakthrough strike in the 90th-minute when Sterling cooly slotted home a spot-kick.
