This Monday, the French national team will play Iraq in their second match of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers at 11 p.m. at Lincoln Financial Field. Ahead of the match, Le Parisien and L’Equipe tried to guess which lineup each country would field. Five Paris Saint-Germain players, all French, are involved in the match: Lucas Hernandez, Warren Zaïre-Emery, Désiré Doué, Bradley Barcola, and Ousmane Dembélé. Deschamps is predicted to start.
France (4-2-3-1):
Mbappé
Doué – Olise – Dembélé
Rabiot – Tchouaméni
Digne – Saliba – Konaté – Koundé
Maignan
Iraq (4-4-2):
Al-Hamadi – Hussein
Jasim – Al-Ammari – Iqbal – Bayesh
Doski – Hashim – Tahseen – Ali
Hasan
These lineups are quite credible, considering the choices made in the first match, the available players, and possible adjustments. As for the French national team, we’ve also seen several times that the media are often quite accurate regarding coach Didier Deschamps’ choices.
However, these are not the official lineups, and surprises are still possible. We can expect some rotation within this very deep squad, especially since there were only two late substitutions in the first match. Not to mention Bradley Barcola’s excellent performance off the bench against Senegal, with the possibility of a repeat appearance this time. We’ll therefore wait for the official team announcement, approximately one hour before the match, for confirmation.
