Illness has ravaged the France team just 48 hours before the World Cup final in Lusail Stadium with several first-team players missing training as a result.
The French Football Federation (FFF) has confirmed that several players have caught the flu with defenders Raphael Varane and Ibrahima Konate the latest to fall ill. Centre-back Dayot Upamecano and midfielder Adrien Rabiot already missed France’s 2-0 semi-final win over Morocco with the illness.
Didier Deschamps, however, assured everyone that there was no need to panic and that all the important team players will be able to make the final on Sunday and that the players who were feeling ill have been isolated from everyone.
Aurelien Tchouameni and Theo Hernandez also missed training on Friday to work indoors as they recover from knocks to their hip and knee respectively.
“Dayot will be fit. Since Saturday he wasn’t well for three days … had a fever and that had an impact on his strength,” Deschamps said on Wednesday.
“Given the tough match we had I decided not to play him and play Konate instead as he’s shown he’s good enough to play at this level”.
The defending champions will face a selection dilemma if Konate, Upamecano and Varane all are declared unfit to start especially with Argentina returning to near full strength.
France is looking to become the first back-to-back World Cup winners since Brazil when they take on Argentina in the final this Sunday.
