France has remained unbeaten in the group stage of Division A of the Nations League. Les Bleus were already assured of the lead and with that qualification for the Final Four-tournament, but also won the final group game against Sweden, 4-2. At the same time, Croatia lost to Portugal at the last minute (2-3). Like Sweden, Croatia collected three points in the pool. The mutual result offers no solution to determine the relegation (both teams won 2-1 from each other), but the Croatian goal difference is slightly better: -7 to -8. As a result, Sweden relegates from Division A.

France – Sweden 4-2
Sweden, without the suspended N’Golo Kanté, surprisingly took the lead in the fourth minute after France’s weak defensive work. Paul Pogba did not handle a cross from Mikael Lustig sufficiently: he worked the ball in front of Viktor Claesson’s feet and with a subsequent tackle, he was unable to put the Swede off the ball. The rest of the defense did not intervene; eventually Claesson hit via Raphaël Varane’s foot. However, Sweden could not enjoy the lead for long. After fifteen minutes, France countered quickly and successfully: Olivier Giroud got the ball in the penalty area from Marcus Thuram and found the left corner with his left leg.

Nine minutes before half-time, France took the lead. Thuram soloed beautifully towards the penalty area, made a pirouette past Sebastian Larsson and with a bit of luck got the ball to Benjamin Pavard, who took it from the air and found the far corner: 2-1. The goal was reminiscent of his wonderful goal against Argentina at the 2018 World Cup, but was a bit less spectacular. Thanks to Giroud, France subsequently expanded even further. The striker anticipated a turning cross from Kylian Mbappé and headed his team to a 3-1 lead. Shortly before the end, Robin Quaison made it 3-2, but the desired equalizer was not forthcoming. On the contrary: deep in injury time, substitute Kingsley Coman scored in an empty goal, after goalkeeper Robin Olsen had come along with a Swedish free kick.

Croatia – Portugal 2-3
After the first half, there seemed to be no cloud in the air for Croatia. The host country rarely ran into problems and led 1-0 thanks to a goal from Mateo Kovacic after half an hour. Rúben Semedo did not handle a cross from Nikola Vlasic well, so that the ball ended up in the Mario Pasalic penalty area. He reached the up-and-coming Mateo Kovacic, who initially bumped into keeper Rui Patrício but was effective in the rebound. The second half, however, started badly for Croatia: shortly after half-time Marko Rog received his second yellow card for a foul on Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal scored in the subsequent free kick.

Ronaldo took care of the free kick from a great distance himself. Goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic parried his cannonball, but in the rebound Rúben Dias was found just in front of the goal by Rúben Semedo: 1-1. Portugal took the lead eight minutes after the goal. After a long ball from behind, Diogo Jota took the ball with him by hand, which was not seen by the referee, then enabled João Félix to make it 1-2. With ten men, however, Croatia came alongside: Kovacic found the far left corner just outside the penalty area. Twelve minutes before the end, substitute Bernardo Silva failed to give Portugal the victory, but Dias did so in the last minute, after Livakovic let the ball slip after a corner.