2018 World Cup – qualifications: the France inherited a tough group – The Point

The France team will play the qualifications for the 2018 World Cup in Group A, against the Netherlands, seeded, Sweden, Bulgaria, Belarus and Luxembourg, according to the draw made on Saturday in St. Petersburg. The Blues have so much to do to qualify directly for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, with a major rival to overcome, the Netherlands, 3rd in the World Cup final.

In addition to the Dutch, who were in the pot of seeded 1, the Blues will also struggle with Sweden, an outsider not to underestimate Bulgaria, which evokes bad memories from 1993, Belarus and Luxembourg in the homogeneous group A . Oliver Bierhoff, the manager of the selection of Germany as France was concerned above all to have to face, has nevertheless been heavy handed. Attendant draw, so he placed France with the Netherlands, certainly in an opponent renewal cycle but rarely misses major international competitions for 25 years.

The Blues against Zlatan?

Didier Deschamps’ team pays quite expensive so its current Fifa ranking (22nd), which deprived him of protection in the draw by not placing it among the top seeds after two defeats in friendlies in June against Belgium (4-3) and Albania (1-0). After the Oranje, the Blues will have to watch especially Sweden, which perhaps will no longer Zlatan Ibrahimovic – who will then have 35 years – for the drive but may have seen the confirmation of his golden generation of champions Hopes in Europe this summer. As for the Bulgarians, the Blues will hope not to see especially the 1993 spectrum reproduce when Kostadinov and company had blocked the road to the World Cup-1994 in the United States to Deschamps and others in the last group game.

But the fate of the Blues is nothing compared to that of the group of death! Spain and Italy will compete in the toughest group of European qualifications at the World-2018 (Group G), which also includes Albania, Israel, Macedonia and Liechtenstein. The two nations had met in the final of Euro 2012, won 4-0 by Spain.

Only the first of each group will directly qualify for the World Cup in Russia, and eight best runners compete dams. The qualifiers for the European region will be held from 4 September 2016 to 10 October 2017. The nine group winners will get their passport to Russia, the eight best runners will be donated dams November 2017.