Zidane and Mancini get first home wins in charge of France and Italy in Nations League
France left it late to beat Belgium 4-1 in the Nations League as Zinedine Zidane got his first home win as the national coach on Monday.
That reinforced France’s control of Group A1, three points above Italy, which beat Turkey 3-1.
Third-placed Belgium slipped four points below France. Turkey has no points.
Zidane started his time in charge of Les Bleus with wins over Turkey and Belgium before being held to a draw by Italy on his home debut on Friday.
France was trailing until the 77th minute on Monday before goals from substitutes Désiré Doué, Rayan Cherki and Michael Olise (two).
“The first half was tough; facing a low block is always difficul,” Olise said. "But we kept going and at the end it was good.
"It’s a collective effort, too. He (Zidane) brings in ideas, we follow them — we’ve done that well over the last four matches, we’re going to continue like this."
France was still to book a spot in the quarterfinals. It would have been assured of one of the top two places in the group if it beat Belgium and Italy failed to beat Turkey.
At the Stade de France, Belgium took the lead in the 35th minute. Dodi Lukébakio sprung the offside trap to run onto a magnificent, long pass from Roméo Lavia, raced through one-on-one with debutant Guillaume Restes and powered it over the France goalkeeper and into the back of the net.
Doué finally pulled one back for France in the 77th with a low shot into the bottom right corner, and Les Bleus got the match winner in somewhat strange fashion four minutes later.
Maarten Vandevoordt appeared set to save Cherki’s strike but the ball hit the Belgium goalie’s foot and rebounded in off his left arm. Olise set that up and added two goals in three minutes himself to seal the match.
In Italy, Roberto Mancini was also looking for a first home win. He started his return to the Italy bench with a loss in Rome to Belgium before morale-boosting away performances against Turkey — where the Azzurri won 4-1 — and France.
Turkey was under pressure after scoring just one goal and conceding eight in its three matches. It was also missing key players but nevertheless started the brighter in Bologna.
However, Italy took the lead against the run of play in the 26th. Gianluca Scamacca attempted to knock down a cross and it bounced off a Turkey defender’s shoulder before falling kindly back to Scamacca, who volleyed it in off the underside of the crossbar.
Aral Şimşir swept in a deserved equalizer for Turkey in the 61st but Italy was back in front just three minutes later when Riccardo Calafiori headed in Nicolò Barella’s free kick.
Pio Esposito sealed the win late on when he tapped in Alessandro Romano’s shot. Esposito became only the second Italy player to score seven international goals before his 21st birthday.
Victor Gyökeres extended his record Nations League scoring streak to seven games to fire Sweden to a 1-0 win in Romania.
It was a fourth of the campaign for Gyökeres, who broke the record on Friday.
Sweden tops Group B4 and is two points above Bosnia-Herzegovina, which beat Poland 1-0.
Northern Ireland remained on top of Group B2, despite being held to 0-0 by Georgia. Hungary won against Ukraine 2-1 and was second.
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