{"id":401673,"date":"2025-09-06T03:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T03:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/401673\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T03:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T03:53:14","slug":"france-2-0-ukraine-5-sep-2025-game-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/401673\/","title":{"rendered":"France 2-0 Ukraine (5 Sep, 2025) Game Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/a> struck a magnificent late goal as France<\/a> launched their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Ukraine<\/a> in Poland.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9’s solo effort in the 83rd minute, which drew him level with Thierry Henry as France’s second all-time top goalscorer on 51, swept the game out of the Ukrainians’ reach, although only after they had threatened to notch an equaliser at Wroclaw’s Stadion Miejski.<\/p>\n

Michael Olise<\/a> had opened the scoring with a crisp finish and while Les Bleus were in control for most of the match, the crucial second proved elusive until Mbapp\u00e9’s moment of magic.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 limps off for France in worry for PSG<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

–\u00a02026 World Cup: Who has qualified, and how the rest can make it<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Real Madrid forward matched Henry’s France total in 32 fewer games. Only Olivier Giroud with 57 has more.<\/p>\n

“Big up, Titi. But I want to overtake you now,” Mbapp\u00e9 quipped. “No, it’s an honor.”<\/p>\n

It was Les Bleus’ and Mbapp\u00e9’s first World Cup game since his hat trick in that epic loss to Lionel Messi and Argentina in the 2022 final when they were defending champions.<\/p>\n

“We had a lot to lose so it’s very good to begin the qualifying campaign with this victory,” France coach Didier Deschamps told broadcaster TF1.<\/p>\n

\"KylianKylian Mbapp\u00e9 celebrates after scoring France’s second goal in their win over Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Mateusz Slodkowski\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Deschamps made seven changes to the side which overcame Germany<\/a> 2-0 in the Nations League third place playoff in June and two of the new faces combined to fire France ahead in the 11th minute.<\/p>\n

A long ball released Paris Saint-Germain forward Bradley Barcola<\/a> down the left and he was given the time and space to pick out the unmarked Olise, who found the bottom right corner with ease.<\/p>\n

Ukraine had produced some promising moments in the opening exchanges, but Olise’s strike knocked them off their stride and the Bayern Munich<\/a> star was denied a second shortly by a superb one-handed save from Anatoliy Trubin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9 steered a shot over the crossbar and it was the dangerous Barcola who was causing Ukraine’s over-worked defence the greatest problems through his runs down the left.<\/p>\n

A better job was done on crowding out Mbapp\u00e9 as he looked to release Olise and when half-time arrived the stats painted a picture of French dominance, including three shots on target compared to the underdogs’ none.<\/p>\n

Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9<\/a> was brought on for D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Dou\u00e9<\/a> at the interval but the next threat came from Ukraine with France having to deal with a corner, cross and free-kick in quick succession.<\/p>\n

Olise tried his luck from long range as France went back on the attack before Trubin had to be alert to a tricky run by Dembele.<\/p>\n

Ukraine then produced their best spell of the match with Illia Zabarnyi<\/a> nodding a free kick against the post from close range before Ibrahima Konat\u00e9<\/a> intervened to keep out a header from Ivan Kalyuzhnyi.<\/p>\n

Knowing they had gone close to conceding, France responded with Olise, Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 and Barcola each looking to add the second goal which would put the game beyond reach.<\/p>\n

Barcola in particular should have done better after being teed up Olise, but his shot went high.<\/p>\n

Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 limped off to be replaced by debutant Hugo Ekitike<\/a> and with seven minutes left France had their second when Mbapp\u00e9 charged into the box, turning Zabarnyi inside out, before slotting home an unstoppable finish.<\/p>\n

Information from PA and The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 struck a magnificent late goal as France launched their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-401673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115155331032659673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}