France vs Kazakhstan

France will be looking to all but cement their place at next year’s World Cup finals when they take on minnows Kazakhstan at the Parc des Princes.

France followed up a come-from-behind 3-2 win over Belgium in last month’s UEFA Nations League semi-finals with another turnaround against Spain in the competition’s grand final (2-1), becoming the first nation to win five different major international accolades in the process. With the confidence now brimming in the ‘Les Bleus’ camp, Didier Deschamps’ men will be aiming to land a berth at next year’s showpiece in Qatar with another win here. Though they’ve gone unbeaten in their six 2022 World Cup qualifying matches to date (W3, D3), the reigning world champions have struggled to impress up top, netting an average of just 1.33 goals per game in that span. However, they’ve been exceptional at the back, conceding under 1.5 goals in each of their last 24 World Cup qualifying fixtures on home territory.

In the meantime, Kazakhstan have lived up to their status as group whipping boys, failing to win any of their seven 2022 World Cup qualifiers so far (D3, L4). By extension, the ‘Hawks’ last won a World Cup qualifying game in September 2013, while you have to go back to November 2016 to find the last time Kazakhstan scored in the first half of a World Cup qualifier. Since football returned to action in the post-coronavirus pandemic period in September 2020, Talgat Baysufinov’s men have won just one of their eight internationals on the road (D3, L4). What’s more, they have lost three of their last four Group D matches (D1), drawing a blank in each defeat, which could prove detrimental to their hopes of staging an upset in Paris.