Moldova vs France Predictions

Didier Deschamps’ men stand a great chance of qualification for this year’s European Championships as they are by far the biggest side in Group H and have been in pretty good form since their World Cup win in July. They have beaten the Netherlands (2-1), Uruguay (1-0) and Germany (2-1) in the past few months and there is little sign that their dominance is coming to an end. They have won twelve of their last 17 games with 30 goals scored in that time. The 16 goals conceded in that tine is slightly worrying but with such a strong squad at their disposal, Moldova shouldn’t be that much of an issue. 

All the usual suspects have been selected for this match and their game against Iceland on Monday with Pogba, Griezmann and Lloris all making the 23 man squad. Alexandre Lazaette and Clement Lenglet have been rather high profile omissions from the team but with Raphael Varane and Kylian Mbappé filling those slots, they should have enough quality about them to really trouble Moldova. France don’t have a tremendous away record with just one win in their last four on the road but the mentioned personnel should be enough to win this game. 

Moldova are currently ranked as Europe’s 5th worst side with them occupying the 170th spot in the FIFA World Rankings. They finished third in their four team Nations League group as they could only beat Europe’s worst side San Marino (1-0, 2-0). The manager Alexandru Spiridon has been in the job for just more than a year but he has won only two of the eleven games he has managed. Despite the lack of goals in Spiridon’s side, he has done a good job at tightening up their pretty leaky defence as they have kept six clean sheets in the eleven games under Spiridon. Draws against much higher ranked sides like Luxembourg (87th, 1-1), Belarus (78th, 0-0) and Armenia (101st, 0-0) have really shown the improvements under the new manager but the attacking side of their play is in dire need of improvement. 

They have failed to score in seven of the eleven games under Spiridon but it’s no wonder given the real scarcity of quality the manager has to choose from. Just two of the Moldova team play in a top five European league with Cagliari’s Artur Ioniță and Torino’s Vitalie Damașcan both playing in Serie A. The latter is still to make an appearance for Torino but Ioniță has been a mainstay of Rolando Maran’s side this year with the defensive midfielder playing every league match this season. His great tackling ability will be crucial in this game but it still doesn’t sort out their scoring issues. Only two of the called up players have scored more than three times at international level and this could really hold them back in this match. 

We really don’t see Moldova scoring in this match, even given France’s average defensive record. The lack of talent up front for Moldova paired with the personnel that the French have at their disposal just doesn’t add up to them getting any goals but we are backing the away side to get some. With Moldova failing to keep clean sheets against Luxembourg and Kazakhstan in their last two games, we’re going to back a simple 3-0 win for France as they look to flex their muscles in Chișinău. We think the France -2.0 Handicap market looks a good choice for this one.