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Umtiti, Dembélé and the Blues have 90 minutes to be champions of the world./ Photo AFP
By winning his half final against Belgium on Tuesday, the team of France has reached its second final of an international competition in two years, after the Euro 2016. A last step that the Blues seem able to climb.
Twenty years after 1998, the intoxication of victory again made France dance. The Champs-Elysees welcomed with open arms this overflow of joy, following the victory forceps of the Blues against Belgium to nearly 3000 kilometers away. We are in the final, and we expect nothing more than a repetition of history. But she has proven time and time again that she can stutter. It remains a step before cutting the champagne, the highest, the most prestigious, but the one from which the fall is the worst. Those who participated in the Euro-2016 know it.
Our best enemy
Two years ago, she was almost as beautiful as today, history. France was playing at home, so there was already haunting memories, and the Blues had laid the icing on the cake by knocking down the German enemy. We already saw it, but Portugal has been there to sweep away all dreams. Even today, it is an outsider who will try to sit on the roof of the world instead of the Blues. And whether it was admitted or not, everyone thought, even for half a second, that the hardest had been done. This is probably true on paper. So, after defeating Uruguay, against whom we were promised hell, then Belgium, which was one of the finest teams in the tournament, we might wonder if we would not be our best enemy.
do not exclude it, but the French seem this time more armed to go to the end, and above all, prepared not to fall into overconfidence. Simply because those who lived in Saint-Denis in 2016 will be keen not to experience failure again. In a team that was announced without bosses at the start of the World Cup, Griezmann, Pogba, Matuidi, Lloris took things in hand. Raphaël Varane showed him the road to everyone, slamming a liberating head against Uruguay in the quarter-finals, and taking a personal revenge on history after being beaten by Mats Hummels in Brazil in 2014, at the same stage of the quarterfinals. Led by its leaders and boosted by its young, this team from France is strong, probably more than in 2016. This French team is hungry. And it's all together that they will sit down to the table.
The strength of the number
We could feel, over the competition, grow the collective power of these Blues. Sure of their strength, sure of their purpose. "It could seem presumptuous that some players can say: we want to be world champions," said Didier Deschamps. But it is clear that they are on the verge of being right. And to give, at the same time, wrong to a pack of observers. When Pogba declares "we are not favorites, and we have not forgotten the doubts about us at the beginning of the competition, about our ability to play together", there is also this revanchist feeling, this desire to prove.
As in 1998, some in the team come back from a distance, Pogba first, he who was whistled in Nice a few days before the World Cup, Matuidi that was announced finished, Lloris who was not a great guardian or Giroud who was Giroud. So do not count on them to leave their rage in the locker room. But coming back from a distance, the Croatians also know what it means, having played three extra times in three playoff games. Croats who went to seek this finale to the mind. They too will remember 1998 when attacking Sunday's final, they will also remember the Stade de France. It remains to be seen who will have the most desire to finish the job to write the story.
Six holders care
The calm before the storm: the holders of the France team continued to recover yesterday at the stadium field of Glebovets, before entering the final stretch. The recovery was smooth, with a la carte training. Under a clear sun, the team-type was split in two. Five holders trotted along with the physical trainer Grégory Dupont: Lucas Hernandez, N'Golo Kanté, Paul Pogba, Antoine Griezmann and Blaise Matuidi
These five players then attended the substitute session from the bench, alongside the President of the Federation Noël Le Graët
Matuidi, obviously well recovered from the shock to the plexus received Tuesday from the Belgian Eden Hazard, did some extra races, accompanied on the end by Hugo Lloris.
The goalkeeper and captain was part of the group of titular who devoted the session to the care, with Benjamin Pavard, Raphael Varane, Samuel Umtiti, Kylian Mbappé and Olivier Giroud
Thigh bandaged for Umtiti
Only Giroud, Pavard and Umtiti, who wore a bandage in the right thigh, remained in the room adjoining the training ground.
Mbappé and Varane went out to do stretching with a physio on the lawn, and were able to to the small opposition that the substitutes gave themselves, seriously but in a good mood before the "hairdressers" finished it with strikes on the goal. Five players (Pogba, Fekir, Tolisso, Areola and Dembélé) finally made the little game of the strike coming from behind the cage, which must be brushed enough to get into it (curling strike of the left or outside of the right). Only two have survived: Dembélé and N'Zonzi
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