Kylian Mbappé scored his 50th goal for France to lead them to a 2-0 win over Nations League hosts Germany in the third-place playoff clash on Sunday.
The Real Madrid forward is now the third France player to reach 50 goals after Olivier Giroud (57) and Thierry Henry (51).
He produced a match-winning performance with a well-taken goal and an assist for Michael Olise to wrap up the victory.
Mbappe finished off a pass from Aurelien Tchouameni on the stroke of half-time to make it 1-0 for the visitors.
He took advantage of a mistake from German defender Robin Koch to set up Michael Olise, who tapped into an empty net to make it 2-0 for France.
Karim Adeyemi thought he had won a penalty for Germany before the intervention of VAR, but instead, he was booked for diving as the hosts struggled to get going in the encounter.
Dennis Undav’s goal was disallowed after Niclas Füllkrug was adjudged to have fouled Adrien Rabiot in the build-up.
Adeyemi’s three shots were saved by Mike Maignan, while Florian Wirtz hit the post with a stunning effort.
Germany has now failed to win their last three matches, with Joshua Kimmich blaming a lack of structure for the defeats. They have now lost successive Nations League games for the first time since back-to-back defeats against the Netherlands and France in October 2018.
He said, “We should have been leading 3-0 after six minutes. Then we went into the break a goal behind.
“We lost patience too early and lost our structure in the second half. We made too many mistakes and gave them what they wanted.”
France coach Didier Deschamps was impressed with the team’s excellent mindset.
He said, “On the basis of these two games, yes, we have the ability to score goals, and had we found more efficiency, it could have been more. While we have shown enormous quality during this international window, the most impressive thing has been the squad’s excellent mindset.”
Up next for France is the FIFA World Cup qualifiers, which resumed in September.
The Les Bleus are in Group D alongside Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Iceland.
Germany is in Group A, and they will battle it out with Slovakia, Northern Ireland, and Luxembourg.
