From our special envoy to Al-Khor,
Will they still dare to bring it back after the performance of the France team, victorious over a magnificent team from Morocco, on Wednesday, in the semi-finals of the World Cup, in pain, sweat and combat? We obviously want to talk here about all those who, like Thibaut Courtois one evening of seum 2018, had questioned the legitimacy of the Blues in Russia to climb to the gates of the final (and to win it) on the pretext that it did not fall within the canons of beauty that the champions of football aesthetics want to impose on us.
Not playful enough, not enough possession, not enough this, not enough that. But upon arrival, as is always the case, no offense to Luis Enrique who persists and signs to say from his couch that no team in the last four was superior to his, it is the winners who write history. They are the ones who are right against the rest of the world. If they are not yet, winners, because stands before them a little Argentinian man launched in the immense quest of his life, the Blues have offered themselves with the sweat of their brow the right to be right once again .
After 95 minutes of an exceptional battle, Didier Deschamps’ men have done what they know how to do best since their arrival in Qatar: adapt to the blows of fate – two new players on Wednesday, Rabiot and Upamecano – bow down, unite together and pounce on the adversary in the rare moments when the door barely opens. It is finally the loser of the evening, Walid Regragui, who best summed up what makes the salt of these Blues 2022: “Congratulations to the French team, which is able to win with little. Make no mistake about it, in the mouth of the Moroccan coach – who we will salute in passing both for his performance with his group and for his extraordinary press conferences – it is a magnificent compliment.
We live together, we suffer together
On the eve of the semi-final, already, during a press briefing that will be remembered, the native of Corbeil-Essones had put the church back in the middle of the village by catching the ayatollahs of possession of the ball by the colbac . “There is a coach in front of me who is the best in the world and he understood that a long time ago. In 2018, France made me dream with the way they played. They understood everything and they blew everyone up. And again, against England, they didn’t have 40 chances and they blew it all up. It’s the best team.”
Because to go far in a World Cup, there is no need to have the equivalent of two typical teams, like Brazil, nor to have the ball 95% of the time, like the Spain of the streamer Enrique. It can help, of course, but above all you need a tough mind, a dose of lethal realism and the conviction of wanting to go to war for your little friends. What the Blues did on Wednesday, like an Antoine Griezmann once again above the clouds in commitment and self-sacrifice. We could sum it up like this: we live together, we suffer together.
If it is not easy to extort more than two exploitable sentences from him in the mixed zone after the matches, the boy naturally not being comfortable in front of the media, the first scorer of the evening Théo Hernandez nevertheless managed to say everything about the state of mind of this team in a few words: “For me, it is a pleasure to suffer in this kind of match. “More comfortable with the verb, Jules Koundé did not say anything else when asked what made the strength of the Blues during this World Cup. “Solidarity, he replied tit for tat. We are a team that knows how to suffer. In all the matches we had periods when we were less well, but we never gave up. We continued to be very intense and to fight for the boyfriend. This is one of the keys to our success. »
One last effort before the keel
If the Blues struggled to keep the ball and put the Atlas Lions in difficulty, they all – except Mbappé, of course, who has an apology from his teacher – responded present in the physical engagement, and this even when the boat was rocking, as was the case on the return from the locker room when the Moroccan waves swept over the goals of a once again decisive Hugo Lloris.
“There was a lot of intensity, Morocco gave us problems. They were very good, they had a great match and were able to meet the physical challenge,” said Koundé again in the mixed zone. Special mention to Ibrahima Konaté, tenured in place of the seriously ill in the evening, Dayot Upamecano, who impressed with the accuracy of his interventions and his ability to rise to the occasion, which we had no doubts about afterwards. his two games against Australia and Tunisia. Asked in the spans of the Al-Bayt stadium in Al-Khor about the state of fatigue of the boys in the locker room at the end of the match, Aurélien Tchouaméni did not hide that this fight had a price, that of physical freshness.
“Frankly yeah, we were knocked out at the end, he smiled, flushed but happy. We ran a lot, the competition was long. That’s a lot of matches that we string together with a lot of intensity because that’s what this competition demands. The England + Morocco sequence hurt us but with the staff we have, we know that we will recover well. Come on guys, you only have one last effort left, probably the biggest of them all, but it’s definitely worth the effort. A third star on the jersey is worth all the suffering in the world, isn’t it?