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The lead: France sneak into semis without Mbappé
HAMBURG, Germany — This one is for Melbourne 2023. For Doha 2022. For Bucharest 2021. Even for Seville 1982. This is for all the other penalty shootout heartaches that French football, men’s and women’s, has suffered over the years.
On Friday in Hamburg, Didier Deschamps and his players avenged their demons. Without captain and talisman Kylian Mbappé — substituted at half-time of extra time after a close-range header struck his recently broken nose — but with confidence and calmness, France went a perfect 5-for-5 in bettering Portugal on penalties and putting to bed the nightmares of the past.
Unlike in Qatar, where Deschamps admitted that he didn’t make the team work on spot kicks and that he thought it was a lottery anyway, this time was different. France have been preparing for this moment, working on it before the Belgium game in the round of 16 and again before Portugal.
Mentally, the players were more prepared than ever. Eighteen months after falling into the trap of Emiliano Martínez‘s mind games, guess who messed with the opposition’s heads this time? Mike Maignan. The Paris-born-and-bred keeper made the Portuguese wait while he was slowly getting to his goal.
