France players hit by illness, Messi’s hamstring injury ahead of FIFA WC final
Ahead of FIFA World Cup 2022 final on Sunday, France players were hit by illness while Lionel Messi missed the training session with his teammates Thursday due to hamstring injury.
Ahead of FIFA World Cup 2022 final on Sunday, France players were hit by illness while Lionel Messi missed the training session with his teammates Thursday due to hamstring injury.
France were then hit by the sickness bug some time after their 2-1 victory over England on December 10.
Three days later, two players who started that game — defender Dayot Upamecano and midfielder Adrien Rabiot — missed training because they felt unwell. Neither man played in the subsequent 2-0 semi-final victory over Morocco.
On Thursday, Deschamps said Kingsley Coman felt unwell. And, before the final against Argentina, France confirmed that Raphael Varane and Ibrahima Konate had fallen victim to the bug.
Five players but not the five mentioned above who missed the training on Friday. Upamecano and Rabiot felt well enough to return to training. But Coman, Varane and Konate were all forced to stay away from the main group and train separately, according to The Athletic.
Theo Hernandez and Aurelien Tchouameni were also absent, but not because of sickness. Hernandez suffered a blow to his knee in the win over Morocco so trained individually. Tchouameni, who has started all of France’s games, is nursing a minor hip injury.
Argentina, meanwhile, are gearing up for their first shot at World Cup glory since 2014 after Lionel Messi inspired his side to a comfortable win over Croatia in their semi-final meeting on Tuesday night. It remains to be seen whether the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner will be fit to play against France, though, after picking up a hamstring issue during Argentina’s last match, according to Express UK.
Messi was spotted holding the back of his leg and stretching it out on multiple occasions against Croatia to spark fears over his fitness ahead of Sunday’s final before he missed training with the rest of his team-mates at Argentina’s base on Thursday. France will be desperately hoping that Messi is forced to sit on the sidelines for the match, which is set to mark the last World Cup appearance of his international career, although it seems likely that he will play through the pain unless the injury worsens over the next 48 hours.
Both teams will play FIFA WC final on Sunday (tomorrow).