France has won the Nations League match Austria and thus averted relegation to the Nations League B for the time being. Partly thanks to an unleashed Kylian Mbappé, Austria was defeated 2-0 in the Stade de France. The star player of Paris Saint-Germain gave his country the lead and Olivier Giroud put the final score on the board. Due to the win, the French climb (five points) in Group 1 to third place, Austria drops to last place (four points).
The French had already been eliminated in the race for the Final Four of the Nations League and absolutely had to beat Austria not to be relegated to League B. National coach Didier Deschamps changed his team eight places compared to the last Nations League game against Croatia (0-1 loss). He immediately awarded the Monegasques Benoît Badiashile and Youssouf Fofana their basic debut. Mike Maignan was on target due to an injury to Hugo Lloris. It was only his fifth international match for the AC Milan goalkeeper. Up front, the injured Karim Benzema was replaced by Olivier Giroud, who paired up with Mbappé, with Antoine Griezmann playing behind their backs. Marko Arnautovic and Max Wöber were in the starting lineup for the visitors.
Les Bleus thought they would take the lead after two minutes. However, Mbappe’s goal was disallowed for offside. After that, it was only France that set the pace with the star player of PSG as a continuous tease. A brilliant double one-two between Giroud and Mbappé was not promoted to a goal by the latter and Aurélien Tchouaméni was very close to the opening goal. His overhead kick hit the bottom of the bar through the fingers of Austrian keeper Patrick Pentz. The rebound was not for Griezmann. The best pass of the first half came from Tchouaméni. He launched Mbappe who passed the keeper, but the corner was too difficult to score. At halftime, the numbers spoke volumes: the home country scored fifteen goals, the visitors one.
After tea, France continued in the same vein, but a lot more successfully. Within ten minutes it was Mbappé who finally found the net. Giroud launched his swift attacking partner who kept no less than five defenders busy and gave it a go. Pentz had no chance on his swipe. Not much later it was Giroud who doubled the score. He headed a perfect cross from Griezmann against the ropes. This goal makes Giroud the oldest goalscorer in the history of the French national team at 35 years and 357 days. The Austrians tried every now and then to get out, but they were in no danger. Mbappe had it on his hips until the end of the game, although he was unable to add a goal.
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