France have won the Nations League. On Sunday evening, the world champions defeated Spain 2-1 despite trailing and thus replaced Portugal as title holders. After a weak first half, the game picked up momentum after the restart – including a dream goal.
In the end, it was an off-the-ball pass from Theo and Mbappé’s coolness that made the difference. With just over ten minutes left to play at the Guiseppe Meazza in Milan on Sunday evening, Theo set up Mbappé with a well-tempered pass, Mbappé was off and running, sending Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon off the wrong foot with an overhead kick and then slotting in with great skill.
It was the 2-1 for France, the goal that ultimately made the Equipe Tricolore the Nations League winners, because the Spaniards could not find an answer in the remaining time.
Their coach Luis Enrique had changed his starting eleven in two positions after the 2-1 defeat of Italy in the semi-finals: Garcia replaced Pau in central defence and Rodrigo was preferred to Koke in midfield. France coach Didier Deschamps also made two changes after the 3-2 defeat to Belgium, with Kimpembe and Tchouameni starting instead of Hernandez and Rabiot.
Oyarzabal opens the scoring – but Benzema replies
The course of the first 45 minutes is quickly told: Spain had around two-thirds of the ball and dominated the game, but barely managed to impose themselves once against physically present French. There was little to no action in front of either goal, but after the break the game picked up pace and was as entertaining as it was varied.
After just over an hour, the game went from strength to strength: after a long ball from Busquets, Oyarzabal shook off substitute Upamecano and scored with a well-placed left-footed shot to make it 1-0 for Spain (64th), and the world champions struck back a little later: just before the first goal of the evening, Theo had hit the crossbar (64th), but now Benzema scored with a wonderful flick from the corner of the penalty area (66th).
The momentum was now on France’s side, Mbappé tried twice in vain (70th, 72nd), but then struck. His 2:1 brought the decision – because first Oyarzabal found his master in Lloris (89.), then also the substitute Yeremy (90.+4).
