France vs South Africa

France will be looking to maintain their eye-catching run of form when they encounter out-of-sorts South Africa at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy.

France picked themselves up from an early deficit to beat South Africa’s fellow continental rivals Ivory Coast 2-1 last time out, taking their winning streak to six matches. Back at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy, where they’ve not conceded in any of their previous four internationals (W3, D1), ‘Les Bleus’ will seek revenge for a disappointing 2-1 H2H defeat at the 2010 World Cup hosted by South Africa. Led by the former World Cup winner Didier Deschamps, the reigning world champions have developed an unparalleled bounce-back ability, having gone unbeaten in all nine previous internationals when conceding the opening goal (W4, D5). Indeed, they came from behind to beat both Belgium and Spain en route to lifting the UEFA Nations League crown in November.

In the meantime, South Africa have suffered a noticeable dip in form ahead of this clash, going from three consecutive victories to back-to-back internationals without scoring (D1, L1). Entertainment has been relatively sparse in South Africa’s recent fixtures, with each of the last four in a row seeing one or both sides fail to score in matches garnering under 1.5 total goals. A lack of firepower up top has seen ‘Bafana Bafana’ draw a blank in five of their last six international games held on foreign soil, including a dismal goalless draw with FIFA’s #81-ranked side Guinea a few days ago. So it comes as no surprise that the odds are firmly stacked against them here, though it’s worth noting that South Africa won their last meeting with reigning world champions, courtesy of a 1-0 triumph over Spain in 2013.