Giroud flops for France

World Cup qualifying is a task France have rarely found simple. Since the 1986 edition of the competition, they have only progressed automatically through the group stages once, despite boasting the likes of Eric Cantona, Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry through the years.

On the evidence of Les Bleus’ scoreless draw against Belarus in Borisov, the generation of Paul Pogba and Antoine Griezmann will not fare a great deal better.

After a poor first half, they had their chances to put their hosts to the sword, but Olivier Giroud had one of those nights that will only add fuel to those critics who believe Karim Benzema should lead the line.

The game’s big chance fell to the Arsenal man early in the second half. He was the benefactor of a moment of magic from Antoine Griezmann, yet the forward’s finish failed to match the build-up play as he dragged his effort horribly wide.

In the first half, Giroud had a fresh air swipe when well placed, and while his touch at times was quite beautiful, when it came to the moment of truth nothing quite came off. Given that the Arsenal man has not started for his club this season, it was perhaps understandable that there was a significant degree of rust in his display.

It was largely left to Griezmann to provide the magic for the French, though he failed to find space in an ineffective first-half display in which the Euro 2016 runners-up looked hungover from their final defeat to Portugal.

On occasion the Atletico Madrid star looked glorious but found home goalkeeper Andrey Garbunov in the form of his life after the break. He too would fluff his lines on occasion, though, dragging his best sight of goal horribly wide then over-hitting a pass to club-mate Kevin Gameiro that would surely otherwise have allowed the substitute to snatch a winning goal.

There were positives for Didier Deschamps, though.

His side has evolved significantly in the space of less than two months and even if they failed to find a winning goal in Borisov, there were signs of promise from the likes of Layvin Kurzawa and Ousmane Dembele.

Undoubtedly the greatest plus for Les Bleus, though, was the terrific display from fit-again centre-back Raphael Varane, who wore the captain’s armband in Hugo Lloris’ injury-enforced absence. Any danger the hosts posed on the break – and that was not inconsiderable – was inevitably snuffed out by an alert performance from the Real Madrid man.

Still, Deschamps would not have wished for a centre-back to be his side’s star man on an evening upon which the onus was on the forwards to shine. Giroud, notably, failed to do so.

The damage was limited, however, by Sweden and the Netherlands playing out a 1-1 draw. Nevertheless, this was not the way France wanted to begin their quest for glory in Russia.