Kylian Mbappe has been left out of the France squad for October’s international break as he works his way back to fitness after a hamstring injury.
The Real Madrid superstar is not out of action, coming off the bench against Lille on Wednesday evening in the Champions League, but he is not fully fit.
France have Nations League fixtures coming up against Israel and Belgium, but they will do so without their star striker.
Didier Deschamps is not short of firepower even in Mbappe’s absence, with Ousmane Dembele, Bradley Barcola, Randal Kolo Muani, Michael Olise, Marcus Thuram and a recall for Chelsea forward Christopher Nkunku.
The 26-year-old has 10 caps for his country but hasn’t played for France since June 2023.
Nkunku has not been a regular in the Chelsea starting XI so far this season, but having scored in the Premier League, Europa Conference League and Carabao Cup, he has done enough to catch Deschamps’ eye.
Wesley Fofana is another Chelsea star called up by the France boss, while Lucas Digne, Ibrahima Konate and William Saliba are the other Premier League representatives.
The French take on Israel on 10 October before facing Belgium four days later.
Mbappe came off the bench with over half an hour to play against Lille but couldn’t stop Real Madrid slumping to a surprise 1-0 loss.
Manager Carlo Ancelotti was honest about how poor his side were, offering no excuses for the performance.
‘It’s difficult to evaluate the game, everything went quite badly,’ he said. ‘It was difficult for us to do everything. We don’t have to throw everything away and we have to keep a cool head. The feeling is that we are having trouble generating, creating, and possession has been slow, with few ideas… today it is obvious that things have not worked out. We have forwards who need us to play more vertically.
‘The sadness is because the feeling has not been good, you can lose because this is sport, but today we did not give a good feeling. I am worried. We have all the resources to learn and improve, we have to fix things quickly.
‘[Jude] Bellingham is glued to the sideline when we don’t have the ball, but for the rest, it’s the same as last year, it hasn’t changed. I think it’s not enough to talk about the issue to fix it, if it were that way it would be easier. There is a dynamic that needs to be improved, it’s not enough just to talk. I think the team was improving and this is a step backwards.’
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