More than a small step to take. By continuing its faultless qualifying, with a seventh victory in seven games, against Wales (2-1) on Friday April 8, the French women’s football team is getting closer to the 2023 World Cup. against Slovenia on Tuesday at Le Mans (9:10 p.m.) will be enough to grab the sesame for the Australian-New Zealand world championship.
A corner, Wendie Renard soars into the air, slams a header and sends the ball into the back of the net (31st). The recipe has been a great classic of the French team for a few years, but it remains terribly effective. This 33rd goal from the defender and captain of Les Bleues is all the more precious as it allowed Les Bleues to open the scoring against the eye-catching Welsh, before PSG striker Marie-Antoinette Katoto doubled the lead. (56th). Enough to resist the opposing return despite the reduction of the gap by Sophie Ingle (71st).
The classification of group I of the qualifiers for the 2023 World Cup
7 points ahead and still 3 games to play. #ProudToBeBlues pic.twitter.com/PIFnWx7i6N— French Women’s Team (@equipedefranceF) April 8, 2022
“It’s a team that we take very seriously, but we don’t fear them”, confided the coach of the Blue, Corinne Deacon before the meeting. A posture that is all in all logical when you prance quietly at the head of your group, but you find a team which we had had the greatest difficulty in getting rid of in the first leg (2-0) in a match which could have turn in one direction or the other. A relatively similar scenario on this return match.
Once again, it was the Blues who had the last word, but the first half-hour when the chances on both sides were linked, between scrambles in the area and approximate clearances, gave the impression of a match that would remain undecided for a long time. The strike on the post by the very hard-hitting Kadidiatou Diani in the 16th minute, after a succession of clear chances in favor of the Blues, only accentuated this impression.
If the promising young shoots had found the solution on the way out (Selma Bacha and Melvine Malard), this time it was the experienced Wendie Renard who came to reward the beautiful French sequences offered by Diani and Sandie Toletti, particularly prominent on the right flank of the attack. Before the inevitable Marie-Antoinette Katoto planted her 14th achievement in the last ten games by pushing the opposing goalkeeper to the fault. The Welsh clumsiness in the last gesture and the angry tackles of the French defenders, like that of Griedge Mbock at the end of the game, did the rest.