World Cup English

Mbappe and his team-mates ‘knew’ France would lose final on penalties

Apparently Kylian Mbappe and his France teammates had some kind of foreknowledge that they would lose to Argentina once the World Cup final strayed beyond regulation time and went to penalties the prevailing sentiment in the team was that even a “10-year-old” would be able to score past Hugo Lloris.

That’s the lowdown according to Gabby Agbonlahor, who claims the Tottenham and France skipper is “useless” at saving spot-kicks.

Lloris was caught repeatedly on the wrong foot as all four penalties he faced whizzed past him in the final shootout and has now not saved any of the nine he’s faced in major tournaments for France, which actually says a lot.

And Agbonlahor relayed the information to Football insider that the players knew there was no way France were going to end up victorious once the game went to a penalties shoot-out.

“France sort of knew they were going to lose the shootout,” Agbonlahor said.

“When you looked at Mbappe’s face at the end of extra time, they knew their goalkeeper couldn’t save a penalty if a 10-year-old was taking it.

“Lloris is useless at saving penalties.

“Martinez is so good, he’s so big and broad and has such a good record at penalties.

“There was no way France were winning that penalty shootout.”

Meanwhile Lloris’ counterpart on the other end, Emiliano Martinez, not only managed to guess right and saved one penalty while also resorting to sh*thousery to outfox Aurelien Tchouameni into missing his spotkick as he ended up alongside Messi as the fitting heroes for Argentina.

The Aston Villa stopper has saved 23.1 per cent of the penalties he’s faced in his career, compared to Lloris’ 12.1 per cent.