Highlights: France and Italy leave it late to claim 1-0 victories

Raphael Varane being congratulated by teammates after his late header gave France a 1-0 lead

Traditional European powerhouses France and Italy had to toil for hardfought 1-0 victories over Sweden and Albania respectively, in the international friendly matches being played on Tuesday night. Both the teams fielded largely experimental sides – there were 8 new players in the French team, and all 11 new players in the Italian team!

In Marseille, Sweden raised a harmless siege against the home team in the absence of their talisman Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson did enough to protect their goal till the 84th minute.

It was Real Madrid defender Raphael Varane who rose up to power home a corner with only 5 minutes left to play, to give Didier Deschamps’ team a well-deserved goal and an inevitable victory. Karim Benzema was given a chance to increase the winning margin in the closing stages, but the Real Madrid striker could only lift his penalty kick into distant orbits.

In Genoa, it was debutant Stefano Okaka who slotted a goal in from a corner in the 82nd minute to give Italy a 1-0 victory over Albania. The 25-year-old Sampdoria forward had been brought on in the second half to feature in a new-look Italian team.

With this victory, Italy are now on a six-match unbeaten run since the World Cup.

Here are the goals from the two matches.

France 1-0 Sweden : Varane (84’)

---

Italy 1-0 Albania : Okaka (82’)