⚽️ ⚽️ France Come From Behind & Defeats Germany, 2-1 ⚽️ ⚽️

There was a big match between the two most recent World Cup winners yesterday at the Stade de France in St. Denis, just outside of Paris, the capital. Yes, Germany headed on the road to take on the still fairly newly crowned World Cup champions, l'équipe de France.

Initially, Germany had all of the momentum, and France seemed to be on it's heels, unable to settle down. Toni Kroos scored the first goal on a penalty (handball) in the 14th minute to give Germany the early 1-0 lead, getting it just past the reach of French goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and into the corner of the goal. Germany had been given the penalty kick after winger Leroy Sané got to the byline and kicked it right to the arm of diving French defender Presnel Kimpembe. Paul Pogba, who has not had his best two games for France either here or against Iceland, had given up possession of the ball just prior to all of this.

After that, Germany had chances to put some cushion in the lead, but failed to convert, in large part because of solid goalkeeping by Lloris.

France eventually did settle down, and played much better in the second half. Antoine Griezmann, arguably the biggest star for France during their World Cup run, got the equaliser in the 62nd minute. Lucas Hernández passed it to Griezmann, who headed it into the far corner of the goal, beating German keeper Manuel Neuer, who leaped but was unable to stop it. The home crowd burst into life, cheering their champions.

Griezmann struck again in the 80th minute, this time off a penalty kick. It was awarded to the defending champs after French central midfielder Blaise Matuidi got wrapped up with German defender Mats Hummels and went down. Later video showed that Matuidi slipped and that the penalty was awarded on weak grounds, but Griezmann and France will take it nevertheless. That goal gave France their first lead of the game, and they held on to win.

Germany actually controlled possession for most of the game, although France had both more shots,  with an advantage of 14 to 11, and shots on target, by a margin of 4 to 3, than Germany did. Unlike against Iceland, France did not pass the ball better than their opponents, as Germany had more passes, with as much efficiency as France enjoyed in this game.

Still, Germany has now uncharacteristically lost three of their last five games, and six of their last ten games overall. During that span, they went from being the general favorites to win another World Cup, to being one of the most disappointing teams in it, and still suffering from the aftermath. Some are calling for the German head coach, Joachim Löw, to be replaced. Indeed, pressure is mounting for the Germans, as this rare bad streak for them continues now, well past the pressures of what is viewed as a horrendous World Cup tournament for the German side. 

Here is what my brother wrote regarding this win by France over their long-time tormentors:

As you may have already heard, Les Bleus defeated Die Mannschaft in a come-from-behind 2-1 win at the Stade de France. And this wasn't merely a friendly, but the recently created "League of Nations", which from what I gather is similar to the Euro, but restricted to elite teams – i.e. no Faeroe Islands, Liechtenstein, Moldova, San Marino, etc. Here's a clip. Unfortunately, and this is often the case for some reason, it was hard to find footage in a language other than Arabic. For obvious reasons I would have preferred French or English, or even Spanish or Italian for that matter, since I'd be able to pick up a few words here and there.