L'Equipe de France

France plays Nigeria today at 5pm

By Etienne Bennequin
30/06/2014

There will be no stumble this year : with two victories and one draw, France qualified for the World Cup’s last sixteen stages without any one doubting at any time that they would go succeed. Even if this new team (only five players from the starting line up had also started the game against Switzerland) didn’t manage to break the stunning ecuadorian goalkeeper’s resistance, it never seemed like Ecuador had a chance to take away its qualification.

After successfully qualifying for the next stage, "Les bleus" will play Nigeria which ranked second in group F despite its defeat against Argentina and its frustrating draw against Iran. In case of victory against Nigeria, the French team could face either Algeria or Germany, although it is more likely that their quarter final game will be against Germany. It is worth pointing out that since 2002, the German team has always reached the semi-final. The adventure looks complicated for the French team but Spain, Ivory Coast, Italia and even Russia learned to their cost that anything can happen at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.