Benzema scores twice as France beats Armenia 4-0 in friendly match

It was France’s third victory in a row after the Euro 2016 hosts beat Serbia and Portugal in friendlies last month. The Crystal Palace man turned up on the edge of the area to accept the excellent Mathieu Valbuena’s squared ball and lash a dipping shot inside the far post (55′) to make it 2-0 with the fourth goal of his career in Bleu as France made sure their dominance was reflected on the scoreboard.

Pogba sprained his right ankle in training on Wednesday and Les Bleus coach Didier Deschamps subsequently allowed him to return to Juve after a scan confirmed the injury on Thursday. “Our opponents did not really let us play, but it had been a long time since we scored four goals, that’s a good thing”.

Karin Benzema has injured his hamstring, or at least that’s what appeared to happen moments before he was forced to leave France’s match against Armenia.

France’s domination remained fruitless, though, and Armenia could have scored against the run of the play in the 18th minute after Diarra made a rare mistake in an otherwise immaculate display.

Borussia Dortmund’s Henri Mkhitaryan caused a few problems for France for most of the opening stages of the first half.

It took 30 minutes before Benzema fired the first strike on target, with Kasparov making an easy save.

Armenia went close to going ahead in the 25th minute after Sakho failed to deal with a through-ball, which found Sarkisov, who was thwarted by Hugo Lloris.

The 27-year-old striker is regarded as one of the France’s most important players and he will be tasked with scoring the goals to fire them to European Championship glory on home soil next summer.

Armenia’s Gael Pol Andonyan, left, challenges for the ball with…

France’s next friendly is away at Denmark on Sunday.