France needed a first-half own goal by Wober in the 38th minute to get off to a winning start in their Euro 2024 campaign.
Les Bleus started the game comfortably but the Austrians were a hard nut to crack. Coach Ralf Rangnick’s side went into the game with just one defeat since September 2022. They neutralized France’s advances and contested strongly to keep the ball.
Nevertheless, a more star-studded French side still held sway over proceedings to some extent. Despite sharing almost equal possession stats, Les Bleus had more shots on target than the opponent and were more deadly on the attack. In the 38th minute, Wober mistakenly got the ball into his net to give France the lead after Kylian Mbappe’s pressure.
Going down by a lone goal, the Ralf Rangnick-led side tried to find their way back into the game but could not as France held on to the lead.
With a few minutes left to play, Les Bleus were still leading but had to fight off a late push by the opponents for an equaliser.
They got more feisty and contentious towards the end with Kylian Mbappe seeing his first yellow card of the tournament.
France were certainly heading to a deserved victory after a more experienced effort but they were handed a big blow late on. Their talismanic forward Kylian Mbappe suffered a gruesome nose injury and had to be subbed off at regulation time with Olivier Giroud coming on.
It was a lengthy added time to the regulation time but Austria could not respond as the game finally ended with France winning 1-0 to get off to a winning start.
Les Bleus will hope to continue winning when they take on the Netherlands in their next match on Thursday, June 20 while Austria will hope to bounce back from the defeat when they take on Poland on Friday, June 21.
Currently, France and Netherlands are top of the Group with three points each and the same goal difference. The Netherlands saw off Poland with a 2-1 victory in their opening Group D fixture to secure all three points. The clash against France will determine who will top the group. Meanwhile, Poland and Austria will hope to relaunch themselves into the race for a knockout slot after the opening setback.
Four best third-placed teams will join group winners and their runners-up for a place in the Euro 2024 knockout. So, the two teams can still hope to book a place in the knockout despite the opening defeats. With France and Netherlands set to occupy the two top positions in the group, Poland and Austria are likely to slug it out for a third-place finish to stand a chance of qualifying to the next round.
Who do you think will qualify from Group D?
