France won the second ever edition of the Nations League on Sunday evening, coming from behind to beat Spain 2-1 at the San Siro in Milan.
Following Portugal’s triumph against the Netherlands in the inaugural final of the competition in 2019, another heavyweight clash decided this year’s winners, and both the Spanish and French certainly earned their spots in the showpiece match. On Wednesday night, Spain ended the remarkable unbeaten run of European champions Italy for a 2-1 win to avenge their defeat in this summer’s Euro 2020 semi-finals, while France battled from two goals down to overcome Belgium 3-2 in the last minute on Thursday.
Didier Deschamps’ side had to produce another comeback here, too, with Oyarzabal opening the scoring for Spain in the 64th minute, just seconds after Theo Hernandez had hit the crossbar for Les Bleus. The end-to-end action immediately continued, with Karim Benzema curling a stunning finish past Unai Simon from the edge of the Spain box to draw France level. In the 80th minute, Kylian Mbappe sealed the victory for the reigning world champions, a VAR check ruling that the Paris Saint-Germain forward was not offside – despite what many observers thought.
Follow all the fallout from the 2021 Nations League final between Spain and France, below, and read the full match report here.
