Charles gives France a fright
Shea Charles made his mark with an assist as Northern Ireland gave one of the World Cup favourites a fright on Monday night.
A star-studded France team, who started with an attacking quartet of Michael Olise, Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué and Kylian Mbappé, struck twice in six minutes either side of half time to take a 2-0 lead in Lille.
But Charles showed a clean pair of heels to Bayern Munich defender Dayot Upamecano before calmly setting up Barnsley's Patrick Kelly in the 64th minute.
Ten minutes later Olise completed his hat-trick to seal a 3-1 win for Les Bleus, who now travel to USA to begin their World Cup campaign next week.
Charles, whose brother Pierce started in goal, completed the full 90 minutes, earning his 35th cap for his country at just 22 years of age.
Elsewhere, Ross Stewart ended his four-year wait for a cap by featuring as a second-half substitute for Scotland against Bolivia on Saturday night.
The striker earned his third Scotland cap, having last played for his country in June 2022, as the Tartan Army romped to a 4-0 victory in their final warm-up game, with Stewart’s former Saints teammate Ché Adams among the scorers in New Jersey.
Now the focus turns to the real stuff for Stewart and Cyle Larin, who started both of Canada’s pre-tournament friendlies.
Larin played the first half of the World Cup co-hosts’ 2-0 win over Uzbekistan and 73 minutes of the 1-1 draw against Republic of Ireland. Saints duo Ryan Manning and Finn Azaz were both absent from the Irish squad following their Championship play-off exploits.
Goalkeeper Daniel Peretz, who joined Larin in turning his loan stay at St Mary’s into a permanent move, kept a clean sheet for Israel in their 1-0 win over Albania, playing the first 45 minutes of the friendly in Tirana.
