France left it late again in Belgium, with Michael Olise’s 88th-minute winner sealing a 1-0 Nations League victory and extending an unusual pattern around Didier Deschamps’ side: the goals are arriving only after the interval.
A second-half habit becomes a historic sequence
Les Bleus have now failed to score before half-time in each of their last six matches. Their past 11 goals have all come in the second half, a run that has become the second longest of its kind in the history of the national team.
- France have scored 11 consecutive goals after the break.
- They have gone six straight games without a first-half goal.
- The sequence began after Kylian Mbappé scored in the 45th minute against Sweden.
- It is France’s longest such run in 78 years.
Since the start of the World Cup finals, France have regularly struggled to create a decisive opening before the interval. The team have instead found their edge later in matches, whether through changes, pressure or moments of individual quality.
Only the post-war side had a longer run
The previous comparable spell dated from November 1947 to June 1948, when France recorded 14 goals in succession without scoring any of them during the first half.
No French team had matched this type of streak in the decades since. The present run remains three goals short of that post-war record, but it has already moved ahead of every other France sequence in the intervening 78 years.
Olise delivers at the death in Belgium
The latest example came on Monday evening in Belgium in the second round of the Nations League. France were still waiting for a breakthrough deep into the match before Olise struck in the 88th minute.
His goal secured a 1-0 win, but it also ensured that France’s first-half drought continued. For the sixth match running, the dressing-room talk at the interval came with the score still untouched by the French attack.
