Seriously injured a year ago, defender Griedge Mbock is back in the French women’s team for the Nations League matches against Portugal and Austria at the end of September, just like Amandine Henry, who is out of the 2023 World Cup, announced Friday the coach Hervé Renard.
“It’s a great pleasure for me to see her back in the selection. Today she is not capable of playing entire matches, we will have to be very careful, but it was important that she was with us, she was and will remain a senior player,” said the technician to headquarters of the French Football Federation (FFF) about Mbock.
The player, seriously injured in the knee in September 2022 against Greece, entered at the very end of the match during the Champions Trophy, won by her Lyon team against Paris SG (2-0), Sunday, for her first appearance in competition for a year.
Hoped return of Katoto
Amandine Henry, for her part, was forced to abandon the World Cup less than two weeks before the event after being injured in the calf when she had just been recalled to the Blues after more than two years of ‘absence.
Renard also has “very good news” from another injured player who missed the 2023 World Cup, striker Marie-Antoinette Katoto. “I hope that by the next camp she will be with us,” he said.
If defender Maëlle Lakrar and midfielder Kenza Dali are absent due to injury, the coach has retained two young players, striker Julie Dufour (Paris FC), brilliant in the Champions League preliminaries, and defender Jade Le Guilly (PSG ) who can “evolve in all positions of the defense”.
The Blues will play their first two matches of the season against the Portuguese, on September 22 in Valenciennes (9:10 p.m.) then on the 26th against the Austrians in Vienna (6:30 p.m.) for the first edition of the Women’s Nations League, in a group which also includes Norway.