France still without Kante and Thuram

It seems France will be without Marcus Thuram and N’Golo Kanté ahead of their round of 32 clash at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Les Bleus finished their group with a hundred percent record with wins over Senegal, Iraq, and Norway.

According to reports from Lequipe, Didier Deschamps coordinated training without Thuram while William Saliba is being rested.

The Arsenal centre-back already had a successful season but has been struggling with a back injury, which the Les Bleus team have been managing.

The French paper reported that the Les Bleus team trained with no friendly match against the young professionals of the New England Revolution this time around.

A few hours after their victory against Norway, the squad got half a day off to spend with their families and returned to training on Saturday with a light training session at Waltham with 17 players present.

In the management of their fitness, Ousmane Dembélé, Desire Doué, Michael Olise, Maxence Lacroix, and Saliba did a light jog while the rest of the group warmed up with passing drills.

The coaching team then structured the rest of the match around a six-player contest (Risser, Gusto, Cherki, Barcola, Zaïre-Emery, L. Hernandez) against a six-player contest (Samba, Rabiot, Mateta, Konaté, Akliouche, Digne). Rayan Cherki’s team won the contest  9-6, with the Manchester City midfielder delivering an impressive performance, scoring a hat trick.

Deschamps also engaged some of his players in some conversations, which included Lacroix and Warren Zaïre-Emery at the end of the session.

Saliba, after his light jog, did some high-intensity running while Thuram, who continues his recovery from a calf injury, and Kanté remained indoors.

Kanté, who recently returned to the national team after some years of absence, could still play some part in the tournament should they progress to the next round.

This shows the depth in the team that is hoping to get to the World Cup final three times in a row.