5 replacements for Laurent Koscielny in the France national team

Modified May 04, 2018 10:29 GMT

Koscielny could be out of the World Cup

#4 Adil Rami

Adil Rami is pretty good in the air

Adil Rami has been a force to reckon with at the back for Marseille in Ligue 1 and the tall defender has started a whopping 33 games in the league.

Standing at 190 cms, winning aerial duels against Rami is a next-to-impossible task and he uses his stature incredibly well when long balls are pumped deep into the defensive third. He wins an average of 3 aerial duels a game!

At 32 years of age, Adil Rami has oodles of experience and has evolved into a calm and focused defender. The delinquent tendencies of youth have departed and it is difficult to get past him as he still looks comfortable dealing with pressure at the age of 32.

You'll never see Rami being rash and diving into tackles or allowing a striker get a wild shot away. Rami can prove to be a quality replacement for Koscielny and he would absolutely relish the chance to star for France in the World Cup.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Amit Mishra