France vs Bosnia & Herzegovina

France will hope to erase some painful memories from Euro 2020 as they welcome out-of-form Bosnia & Herzegovina to the Stade de la Meinau.

Having qualified for each of the last six World Cup tournaments, the reigning world champions look to be on course of making it eight in a row as they head into proceedings topping Group D (W2, D1). Since being held to a 1-1 home draw to Ukraine in their opening World Cup qualifying fixture, ‘Les Bleus’ have set the pace in this section by racking up back-to-back wins ‘to nil.’ Yet, France might have a point to prove here following an underwhelming penalty shoot-out defeat to Switzerland in the Euro 2020 last-16. There is plenty of reason for optimism in Didier Deschamps’ camp as his side take the field unbeaten in 20 consecutive matches across all competitions if considered just 90 minutes of play (W14, D6).

France’s form in recent competitive action is a sharp contrast to the Bosnians’ utterly disappointing run of 13 straight games without a win (D6, L7 – 90 mins only). Unfortunately, the ‘Dragons’ are unlikely to snap the nation’s worst-ever winless streak against the group’s top-seeded team they’ve never defeated across five previous encounters (D2, L3). Adding to this sentiment, Ivaylo Petev’s men are on a run of four internationals without scoring, which includes a 1-0 defeat against France in the reverse fixture. Moreover, Bosnia are winless in all five internationals on foreign soil since the beginning of 2020 (D2, L3), conceding an average of 2.2 goals per game in that sequence. By extension, a 3-0 thumping of minnows Liechtenstein in November 2019 represents the visitors’ solitary success across their last 13 away games, friendlies included (D4, L8).