Italy win shows ‘true face of the France team’, says Rabiot

Adrien Rabiot believes Sunday's victory over Italy showed “the true face of the French team” as they secured top spot in Nations League Group A2.

The midfielder headed home twice in their 3-1 win, meeting excellent results from Lucas Digne on both. His second goal restored the all-important two-goal buffer that saw them finish above the Azzurri in the group.

This comes after France failed to find a way past Israel in a frustrating 0-0 draw last time out.

However, Sunday's victory ensured France would qualify in the quarter-final draw as they look to put their disappointing Euro 2024 campaign behind them, which saw them win just twice while struggling in front of goal.

Les Bleus also avenged the 3-1 defeat to Italy on home soil in the reverse fixture, something Rabiot said was on their minds as they prepared for their trip to San Siro.

“It's been a long time since we played a match like this, that we didn't all fight together like this until the end,” he told TF1.

“We also aimed to win by two goals, which we achieved. But to be honest, the mutual help that was there in this match, the fighting spirit, the team spirit, must be emphasized. To be honest, we enjoyed it play this agreement.

'It was a different context [Thursday]. Above all, there was revenge to take compared to the previous match against Italy, which came home to win. It's a great evening. I hope we will continue to show this face. It is the true face of the French team.”

𝑶𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒒𝒖𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓-𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒔!

A 3-1 win over Italy and our Blues finish 𝐓𝐎𝐏 in their Nations League group #ITAFRA | #FiersdetreBleus pic.twitter.com/zXj6VnEeYB

— French Team (@FrenchTeam) November 17, 2024

Digne officially had two assists in the win, but he also played a big role in France's other goal, his free-kick rattling off the crossbar before bouncing in off the hapless Guglielmo Vicario.

France even scored three goals from set pieces in a match for the first time since 1991, when they scored three times from dead ball situations against Albania.

“[The free-kick is] a technical gesture that is worked on during the training. The more you do, the more automatic it becomes, and it pays off,” Digne said.

“Offensively it's not bad at all. As a defender I would have preferred to finish with a clean sheet, but we can't have everything. We finished first, that's great.”

“We had to take revenge from the first leg, we wanted to show a completely different face. And in addition to our slightly worse match against Israel… We really wanted to show that this shirt is close to our hearts. The entire group was present It was really a complete match.”

The quarter-finals of the French Nations League will be played in March.