France wins UEFA Nations League

France became the champions of the 2020-21 UEFA Nations League. At the finals with Spain, the French pulled off a come-from-behind win by 2-1 thanks to Kylian Mbappé’s one goal and one assist. Having won the Russian World Cup in 2018, France succeeded the throne of Portugal who won the first champion title of the Nations League in 2019. The prize money for France stands at 12 million dollars (approximately 14.47 billion Korean won).

With the ball possession even, the two European football rivals were neck and neck on other indicators of performance such as shots (7 for France, 8 for Spain) and shots on target (5 for France, 4 for Spain).

It was Spain who first found the net when Mike Oyarzabal successfully defied the challenges from defenders to score an opener in the 19th minute of the latter half. The joy was short-lived, however. Two minutes later, Benzema collected a pass from Mbappé before sending an equalizer into the top-right post in a beautiful arch. In the 35th minute, Mbappé sealed the deal. While it was debatable, a VAR monitoring found that the goal was onside. “It wasn’t an easy game, but we never gave up. We waited and found the goal eventually with a bit of luck as well,” said Benzema in a press afterwards as man of the match. For the consolation prize, Italy beat Belgium 2-1.


Dong-Wook Kim creating@donga.com