English 
There is a surprise in the Austria-France match!
Can injuries and illnesses be the only match for the French against the Austrians?
On Monday evening, one of the tournament’s big favourites, World Cup silver medallists France, will make their debut. Didier Deschamps’ men are favourites by the bookmakers to face the Austrians, but since the appointment of Ralf Rangnick as national team captain, they are hard to write off. Let’s see if Monday night’s game could bring any surprises and whether the possible list of absentees could influence the outcome of the 90 minutes.
The sports press has been full of problems in the last few days, which has made the preparation of Les Bleus very difficult. Mbappé has been struggling with a knee injury, while several members of the squad (including manager Deschamps) have been battling or are battling viral illnesses. According to the French press, however, only Kingsley Coman has been doing extra training alongside Mbappé, so although several players have had flu symptoms in training camp, it may not be that big a problem.
It can’t be that much of a problem when you have strikers like Marcus Thuram, Randal Kolo Mouani, Olivier Giroud or Antoine Griezmann at your disposal, so in truth the French are under no pressure to play Mbappé.
But we have already mentioned the strength of the Austrians in the first paragraph, so let’s praise Rangnick’s team instead.
Since November 2022, Austria have won 12 of their 16 matches, beating Italy, Sweden twice, Germany, Serbia and Turkey 6-1.
Although they still only qualified for the European Championship in second place behind Belgium, the unbroken progress is dazzling, and the Austrian team may even be able to overcome the absence of David Alaba.
Although a draw would be worth a lot for the Austrians, we don’t think Baumgartner will be afraid to go into the match. Remember, we are talking about a team that has scored in each of its last 17 games, 35 in total. We are expecting a good 90 minutes, with goal changes and maybe even a surprise result.
Best free picks for Austria-France
As well as the goals, we’ll be looking for corners, which we don’t expect much of, despite the creative Austrian attacking play. They have rarely managed to go beyond that limit in their previous games, and this time our neighbours are likely to be mainly defensive, so we don’t expect them to take more than 1-2 corner kicks.
| Pick1: Both teams to score @1.80 |  |
| Pick2: Over 2.75 goals @1.90 | |
| Pick3: Austria under 3.5 corners @1.70 | |
| Pick4: Baumgartner over 0.5 shots on goal @2.30 | |
