Adrien Rabiot and Lucas Digne combined perfectly to celebrate their 50th international caps to give France a 3-1 win against Italy in Milan in the Nations League Group A2 decider as they finished top of the table on Sunday.
Rabiot grabbed a brace after being set up twice by Digne, whose screamer of a free-kick was deflected into his own goal by Guglielmo Vicario while Italy scored through Andrea Cambiaso.
The result put France on 13 points at the end of the group phase, ahead of Italy on goal difference after the Azzurri had prevailed 3-1 at the Parc des Princes in September.
“We had a young squad, I wanted to see a lot of players and winning here against an Italian team who were full of confidence is a great performance,” said coach Didier Deschamps.
Goalkeeper Mike Maignan added: “We wanted to win, we were out for revenge. It was about pride after losing at home against them.”
Israel debutant Yarden Shua scored an 86th-minute winner as they upset more fancied Belgium 1-0 in Budapest, but it was not enough for them to avoid relegation from the Nations League’s top tier.
Shua, who had come on as a second-half substitute, took advantage of a defensive mistake from Matte Smets to earn Israel their first win in Group A2, moving them level on four points with third-placed Belgium in the final standings.
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In Group B3, Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick in Norway’s 5-0 thrashing of Kazakhstan. Alexander Sørloth and Antonio Nusa were also on target for the Norwegians, who top the grouup.