France v Ivory Coast – Line-ups, stats and preview for World Cup warm-up

Arsenal centre-back William Saliba aggravated a lingering again harm whereas taking part in towards Paris Saint-Germain within the Champions League closing final week. He stays a vital doubt for the match itself and is definitively dominated out of this warm-up fixture, leaving an enormous void in Deschamps’ backline.

Dayot Upamecano will anchor the defence, with Ibrahima Konaté extensively anticipated to step into the beginning XI as he seeks a brand new membership.

Additional up the pitch, Manchester Metropolis’s Rayan Cherki is anticipated to get a golden alternative to cement his place in Deschamps’ match plans, beginning within the quantity 10 position behind Marcus Thuram. In the meantime, all eyes are on Kylian Mbappé, who stands only a single aim away from equaling Olivier Giroud’s all-time goalscoring file for France.

Ivory Coast must make do with out essential defensive pillars Evan Ndicka and Clement Akpa, who miss out by means of harm, leaving Ousmane Diomande and Guéla Doué to deal with the unenviable job of containing Mbappé and Michael Olise.

Predicted line-ups for France v Ivory Coast

France: Maignan; Koundé, Konate, Upamecano, T. Hernández; Tchouaméni, Rabiot; Dembélé, Cherki, Mbappé; Thuram

Ivory Coast: Y. Fofana; Singo, O. Diomande, Ndicka, Konan; Sangaré, Kessié, S. Fofana; Diallo, Y. Diomande, Adingra.

The place to look at France v Ivory Coast: TV and on-line streams

The match could be watched within the UK on Amazon by means of their Prime PPV service. The stream of the sport is right here and prices £2.99.

Stats for France v Ivory Coast

• Kylian Mbappé is only one aim away from drawing degree with Olivier Giroud as France’s joint all-time prime goalscorer.
• France head into Thursday evening’s conflict on a formidable nine-game unbeaten streak, having scored at the very least two objectives in each single a kind of fixtures.
• That is solely the fourth senior assembly between the 2 nations. France holds a slight historic benefit with two victories and one draw from their three earlier encounters. The newest conflict led to a good 2-1 victory for France in a 2022 pleasant.
• Ivory Coast have confirmed to be an exceptionally robust nut to crack underneath Emerse Faé, navigating their complete World Cup qualifying marketing campaign utterly unbeaten

Prediction for France v Ivory Coast

With each managers managing workloads forward of the journey to North America, that is unlikely to remodel into an chaotic, end-to-end shootout. Count on a extremely bodily, tactical battle.

The pure particular person high quality of Mbappé, Olise, and a hungry Cherki ought to give Les Bleus the slim edge on house soil.

Prediction: France 2-1 Ivory Coast