DO­HA, Qatar (AP) — In­jury-hit France ar­rived in Qatar yes­ter­day to be­gin the de­fense of its World Cup ti­tle, with coach Di­di­er De­schamps lead­ing the squad off the plane af­ter it land­ed.

The squad was to take part in stretch­ing ex­er­cis­es be­fore hav­ing din­ner.

For­ward Ran­dal Ko­lo Muani, who was called up on Wednes­day morn­ing to re­place the in­jured Christo­pher Nkunku, was ex­pect­ed to join the squad on Thurs­day evening.

Nkunku in­jured his left knee fol­low­ing a tack­le from mid­field­er Ed­uar­do Ca­mavin­ga mo­ments be­fore the end of Tues­day evening’s fi­nal train­ing ses­sion in France.

De­schamps is with­out in­jured mid­field­ers Paul Pog­ba and N’Go­lo Kante, who helped France win the World Cup four years ago. Cen­tral de­fend­er Pres­nel Kim­pem­be pulled out Mon­day af­ter fail­ing to suf­fi­cient­ly re­cov­er from a six-week lay­off fol­low­ing a ham­string in­jury.

De­schamps has an anx­ious wait to see if his best cen­tral de­fend­er, Raphael Varane, is fit to face Aus­tralia on Nov. 22 — ex­act­ly a month af­ter he limped off for Man­ches­ter Unit­ed with a ham­string in­jury.

There’s al­so some doubt about Karim Ben­ze­ma’s fit­ness. Since win­ning the Bal­lon d’Or last month, Ben­ze­ma has played few­er than 30 min­utes for Re­al Madrid, com­ing off the bench in a Cham­pi­ons League game.

France starts its ti­tle de­fense against Aus­tralia on No­vem­ber 22 at Al Janoub Sta­di­um, then faces Den­mark be­fore com­plet­ing its Group D match­es against Tunisia on Nov. 30.

No team has suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend­ed its World Cup ti­tle since Brazil in 1962.

When Les Bleus came in­to the 2002 tour­na­ment as de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons they went out in the group stage.