A little more than a month after the World Cup and its elimination in the quarter-finals, the France team began its "Paris 2024" operation on September 22 in Valenciennes. The opposition against Portugal in the North allowed Hervé Renard's Les Bleues to climb the first step that must lead to the top of the Olympic podium. It was not a friendly match but a match counting for the very first Nations League.
Like the France, Portugal played again for the first time since the World Cup. At the antipodes, the Portuguese participated in their first World Cup last summer. The Lusitanians, out in the group stage (1V 1N 1D) had almost achieved the feat by coming close to eliminating the United States (0-0). The last match France - Portugal Women was on March 4, 2015 during the friendly tournament organized by the Portuguese, the Algarve Cup. Les Bleues had won 1-0.
Note that in its Nations League group that will issue tickets to Paris, in addition to Portugal (16th UEFA nation), the France (3rd) will play against Austria (11th) and Norway (7th) in its Group 2 of League A which includes all countries ranked from 1st to 16th place UEFA. The Blues are obviously automatically qualified for "their" Games.
Perisset ➡️ Le Sommer ➡️ Geyoro ⚽️ #FRAPOR #FiersdetreBleues
pic.twitter.com/LuRwWqR3EY
— Women's France Team (@equipedefranceF) September 22, 2023
Hervé Renard's girls found the first opening before the break. It was the Parisian Grace Geyoro (27th) who showed the way with a nice strike between the goalkeeper and the first post. The Parisian, who has just extended her contract at PSG, scored her 16th goal for the France team in her 72 caps. By scoring before the half hour of play, the French had plenty of time to add to the bill. But they only managed to do it once in the last minutes on a nice strike from Lyon's Selma Bacha (89th) in front of 18,379 spectators.
The sublime strike of @BachaSelma ☄️ #FRAPOR #FiersdetreBleues pic.twitter.com/YtoVgbzNwu
— Women's France Team (@equipedefranceF) September 22, 2023
The Blues dominated but being sometimes messy and clumsy, even letting the Portuguese create a few chances in the second half. "We had a great first half, we wanted to start strong in front of our home crowd in front of good opposition," said Grace Geyoro at the microphone of France 3.
The second meeting of the Blues is scheduled for September 26 in Vienna (18:30, France 4) against Austria.
