After a late call-up due to an injury elsewhere, Ibrahima Konate capped off his rollercoaster week with his debut for the France national team in a 1-1 draw with Austria.
The 23-year-old enjoyed an impressive debut season for Liverpool, settling in without a hitch and proving himself in every competition as a valuable partner for Virgil van Dijk and co.
His performances were more than worthy of international recognition but that failed to come throughout the season proper, and initially even for the summer Nations League schedule.
But after an injury to Raphael Varane, Didier Deschamps turned to Konate for France’s remaining fixtures, bringing the defender’s trip to Greece to a quick end.
And on Friday, he was named in the XI for his first cap as France met Austria in the third of their four fixtures this month, lining up next to William Saliba in the centre of defence.
France dominated the contest and yet saw Ralf Rangnick’s Austria strike first through Andreas Weimann in the 37th minute, with Les Bleus undone by some quickfire movement in the penalty area.
Konate’s performance was a modest one on debut for his country, in what was another stuttering outing from France who have yet to pick up a victory in their Nations League campaign.
But the Liverpool defender did play a role in France rescuing a late point, with his drive out of defence seeing him play a ball that bypassed two Austrian players and found the feet of Kylian Mbappe.
Mbappe then played a one-two with Christopher Nkunku and the PSG man ran half the length of the pitch and ended it with a shot into the top of the net, making it 1-1 with 83 minutes on the clock.
With a final game against Croatia on Monday before the summer schedule comes to a close, Konate will have done more than enough for a second cap having certainly outperformed his partner on the night, Saliba.
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