The Blues have their ticket of their pocket for Brazil. The French team certified for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil on Tuesday, beating Eire (1-0) in Grenoble on the ultimate day of the qualifiers. The Blues will thus compete of their fifth World Cup in a row.
The one immediately qualifying place
Melvine Malard mentioned on Monday that she wished to have a “serene summer season”, that’s to say with out having to consider doable play-off matches within the fall. She gave it to herself by opening the rating simply earlier than half-time with a luxurious acrobatic return to launch the Blues in direction of the Brazil. 4 days after regaining first place within the group and its future in hand by successful in Poland, the French staff achieved a second success to retain the one immediately qualifying place.
Laurent Bonadei had chosen to resume the identical beginning lineup as in Gdansk and this alternative paid off from the beginning. In contrast to Friday’s assembly the place they appeared caught up within the problem for round twenty minutes, the Blues instantly received their fingers on the match, rapidly creating quite a few conditions (third, seventh, twenty second, twenty fourth). However he typically missed the suitable cross to conclude. So Melvine Malard determined to assist herself. On a cross from Sakina Karchaoui deflected by Megan O’Conolly, the attacker Manchester United noticed the ball bounce off his head. She then armed an unstoppable acrobatic return, thus scoring her fourth aim in these qualifiers (fortieth).
The massive match of Constance Picaud-Inconnu
However, whereas the Netherlands had been on the identical time successful towards Poland and victory was turning into crucial for France to qualify, the match was rebalanced and Constance Picaud-Inconnu distinguished herself towards the more and more urgent Irish. As soon as once more most well-liked to Pauline Peyraud-Magnin in aim, the 28-year-old goalkeeper first caught a missed cross from Thiniba Samoura (forty third), earlier than making an exit stuffed with authority to intervene at level clean vary in entrance of defender Anna Patten (68th).
And the exclusion of Thiniba Samoura, responsible of a second anti-playing fault and penalized with a second yellow (72nd), didn’t assist something for the Blues, who had been more and more threatened. Decreased to 10, they nonetheless needed to depend on their final protection. The Fleury goalkeeper, who will be a part of West-Ham this summer season, as soon as once more made an enormous save in entrance of Abbie Larkin, alone on the entrance to her six meters (78th), to permit the Blues to keep up a bonus synonymous with qualification for Brazil.
The French ladies now have a yr to calmly put together for a World Cup the place the target can be to interrupt the glass ceiling of the quarter-finals and return to the final 4 for the primary time since 2011.
