France – Australia

One of the favourites for the trophy France faces Australia in a match from Group C of the World Cup 2018. Although this game has a clear favourite in the face of France, we are still going to examine it in our winning soccer predictions.

This French team is really impressive, so it’s not a surprise that a lot of pundits think that they are in a strong position to win the competition for a first time since 1998. Stacked with impressive talent and individiuals, Didier Deschamps’ squad makes a fearsome opponent. Two years ago France reached the final of the European Cup, surprisingly losing against Portugal. Now the French teams would like to fix the mistake and win the World Cup for a second time in this nation’s history.

Looking at France’s squad for the World Cup, it’s enough to mention names like Hugo Lloris, Samuel Umtiti, Raphael Varane, Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kante, Ousmane Dembele, Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann. Deschamps have a lot of options to choose from. His team is so good that players like Adrien Rabiot, Anthony Martial and Alexandre Lacazette didn’t even make the cut.

Nobody is going to be surprised that France didn’t face any difficulties in qualifying for the World Cup. They beat Sweden and the Netherlands for the first place in Group A. Les Blues managed to win seven of their matches, made two draws and suffered just one defeat – against Sweden. Generally speaking, it was a good campaign for the Swedish team, even if we didn’t see the best of them in some rare cases.

After the end of the qualiyfing campaign, France played in six friendly games. Les Blues won four of them (against Wales, Russia, Ireland and Italy), made one draw against Germany and suffered just one surprising defeat – against Colombia.

In its last friendly to date France enjoyed a terrific 3-1 win over Italy in Nice. It was Samuel Umtiti, Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembele who scored the winning goals for the French team. It’s true that right now Italy are not at their best level and they even didn’t qualify for the World Cup, but it’s still impressive to score three goals against this team.

Barcelona’s winger Ousmane Dembele is the man who shined against the Azzurri. Dembele scored a goal and did a lot of damage to Italy’s defense. He didn’t have the best season at Barca, still adapting to his new team, but it won’t be surprising of Didier Deschamps uses him on a regular basis in Russia. His pace and technique are precious for the French team and he can be a huge weapon at the World Cup.

Australia will be at the World Cup for a fifth time in their history. So far the best result of the Socceroos is reaching the 1/8-finals in 2006, under the management of the legendary Guus Hiddink.

Australia didn’t qualify directly for the World Cup. They had to participate in a playoff, facing Honduras. Bert van Marwijk’s boys didn’t make a mistake, beating Honduras with 3-1 at home in the second leg. After a 0-0 draw in the first match, Australia secured their ticket to Russia.

The veteran Tim Cahill remains the most interesting name in this Australian squad. 38-years old already, the former Everton player is the obvious leader of the Socceroos. It’s still not clear how often Bert van Marwajk will use him in Russia, but for sure he’s a big name in the history of Australian football.

These are our winning soccer predictions for the World Cup 2018 match between France and Australia.