Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea were handed tough groups after the draws for the group stages of the Champions League were drawn on 24 August, 2017.
Spurs are in a group along with defending champions Real Madrid, German giants Borussia Dortmund and APOEL Nicosia.
Chelsea have Atletico Madrid and AS Roma in theirs, with Qarabag completing their group.
Here is the France squad for their upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Netherlands and Luxembourg, as announced by coach Didier Deschamps today (August 24, 2017).
Notable omissions include Anthony Martial, Ousmane Dembele, Karim Benzema and Benjamin Mendy, but there is a return for Olympique Lyon’s Nabil Fekir.
Deschamps has also said that players will not be allowed to leave Clarefontaine to sort out any potential transfers. The camp begins from Monday, which essentially means the transfer window for players like Mbappe (who has been linked with a switch to PSG) effectively ends on August 27.
On that note, Ousmane Dembele’s omission could perhaps mean a late transfer move in the offing for the Dortmund star?
According to Dutch media reports, Ajax Amsterdam have rejected a 50 million euro bid from AS Monaco for teenage striker Kasper Dolberg. The news of the bid comes shortly after the club agreed to sell Davinson Sanchez, their Player of the 2016/17 season, to Tottenham Hotspur for a club record £42m fee. After the Sanchez deal, Ajax director Marc Overmars mentioned that there would be no further sales.
The news of the bid is interesting because it also hints at Kylian Mbappe’s move to Paris Saint-Germain getting finalised. Ajax apparently do not wish to sell the 19 year old, who won the Johan Cryuff award for young talent of the year for 2016/17.
The Amsterdam outfit have roughly made 75 million euros by selling players this summer to English top flight clubs- Sanchez to Spurs, Davy Klaassen to Everton for 27 million and Jairo Riedewald to Crystal Palace for 9 million euros. Their acquisitions so far have totalled to a little over 6 million euros.