“A few months ago, it was still unimaginable for her to go through all that…” When he glances in the rear view mirror, Patrice Lair is well aware that no sign predestined Eugénie Le Sommer, his former striker at OL (from 2010 to 2014), to participate in a fourth Women’s World Cup. And even less to shine there as she does, with 3 goals scored in 3 games before challenging Australia on Saturday (9 a.m.) in the quarter-finals. From the start of the season, the 34-year-old had felt that she was not Sonia Bompastor’s offensive priority in Lyon, and the rest went in this direction. In the end, she scored only 7 goals in 17 D1 games, and even none in her 7 appearances in the Champions League. In such a prolific career, this is a serious anomaly linked to physical glitches but also to a crying lack of confidence.
All this while being very far from the France team, for the second consecutive season, since Corinne Deacon has never called on the top scorer in the history of the selection since the spring of 2021. “It was hard for her to no longer be selected with the Bleues, and even to go into second or third attacking choice in Lyon, decrypts Corine Petit, her ex-partner at OL and in the national team. But she didn’t say anything, she’s a great professional, super positive in a locker room. And above all, “Eugé” never lets go, so everything that happens to him at this World Cup doesn’t really surprise me. Plus, when you know what you’ve lost for two years, you want to blow it all up even more the day you’re back. »
“Unrivaled in a penalty area at world level”
And this explosion did not wait for the World Cup to arrive. Hervé Renard just inducted at the head of Les Bleues, she is part of his first list, then of his starting lineup, in a friendly against Colombia on April 7. Long-awaited, Eugénie Le Sommer responds fully present by slamming a double in four minutes (56th and 59th) essential to overthrow Colombia (from 0-2 to 5-2). The striker’s second life couldn’t have started better, as could her glaring complicity with her new coach.
“Hervé Renard manages it well, both in terms of playing time and the doublet he has installed in front and which works well with a powerful attacker like Diani, appreciates Patrice Lair. We feel, with its qualities of displacement and the speed of its sequences that it finds feelings which it had perhaps lost. She has regained confidence with him, she is having a blast. Before living her 20th World Cup match against Australia, obviously another record in the history of French football for the player with 92 goals in 182 selections, she almost blushed alongside Hervé Renard, this Friday at a press conference.
When she came back, she lacked rhythm, I was not sure that she could ensure all the matches, confided the tricolor coach. But I go from good surprise to good surprise. I see her flying over matches technically and going through them physically with no problem. I’m satisfied. It has no equal in a penalty area at world level. I’ve seen a few like that in men, she’s of that quality. She is surgical. With her, all it takes is one bullet, and we’re waiting for tomorrow’s. »
“It was hardly a goal for me anymore”
Such a concert of praise is still not so frequent in a pre-match conference, and it obviously sums up how Hervé Renard made the choice to put Eugénie Le Sommer in the best possible mood. After the recital / double of his striker against Morocco in the round of 16 (4-0), he even went there with a pretty punch line “She looks like she has 25-year-old legs.” While it will therefore have ten more next May. “She manages to ask for the balls, but she is also at the finish. At his age, I think not everyone is able to do it, ”supports his partner at Les Bleues Grace Geyoro.
It’s simple, since the arrival of the former Saudi Arabia coach four months ago, she has scored 6 goals in 7 starts. Her technical accuracy, her participation in the game and her composure in the area, as on this decisive header in pool against Brazil (2-1) contrast with her Lyon trajectory, which sometimes foreshadowed a player at the end of the race this year . And this even if she has finally signed up for a 14th consecutive season with OL. Of course, his return to the fore with the blue jersey might not have been so brilliant without the serious injuries of Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Delphine Cascarino. But after two years of being unfairly sidelined, Eugénie Le Sommer deserved a total alignment of the planets, didn’t she? On the FFF website, she also confided in this interminable absence just before the start of the World Cup.
I had to get back into it because it was hardly a goal for me anymore. By dint of no longer seeing my name on the list, I had taken a little distance with the France team. I immediately had to recondition myself and it’s almost a dream for me to compete in this World Cup. This desire to return to the selection was present deep inside me but I did not have the cards in hand. Even if I gave everything I could on the pitch, the choices were made afterwards. I know football moves very fast and it was in a little corner of my head. But it was very, very far away and it has become very, very close again…”
It is now the prospect of a second World Cup semi-final, after that of 2011, which is very very close for Les Bleues and their unexpected and “surgical” scorer.