At the Parc des Princes,
You will have to get used to it but, as strange as it may seem, this season, it is with PSG that you have to have a date to enjoy watching a football match at the Parc des Princes. Exceptionally relocated – due to France-All Blacks at the Stade de France on Friday evening – in the enclosure of the Rouge et Bleu, the Blues simply beat Ireland two goals to nothing and prance at the top of their qualifying group at the Euro 2024.
Five victories in as many matches, twelve goals scored and zero conceded, the Deschamps gang is moving forward in these qualifiers as they would stroll on the Promenade des Anglais on a summer evening, in shorts and flip-flops, relaxed as ever. But for the show and the beautiful game, we would rather be in a dark alley in a bad neighborhood of Soweto. Do you find us harsh? We always are with those we love. Especially when they took us so high in emotions as recently as six months ago, in Doha.
An Irish team not easy to maneuver
It must be said that the Irish didn’t do much to help the show. Came with the idea of… But to do what, exactly? Except for playing in a low block, without trying anything the rare times they recovered the ball. To their credit, our friends from the north were deprived of Fergusson, their only real star to shine. However, on the first leg, the Irishmen had given our Blues a hard time, saved by the man whom Antoine Griezmann described on Wednesday in the pre-match conference as “big Mike”. So, to get around the bunker, the French team often relied on the explosiveness of Ousmane Dembélé on the right side, while Mbappé had to find the time long on the opposite side, even if it must be said that after a few “ich-ich”s of which he has the secret, the Parisian seemed to us to lack juice and accuracy.
The problem with Dembouz is that he is as strong in these excesses as he is clumsy, and the word is weak, in the last or penultimate gesture. We no longer count the number of missed crosses or uncertain back passes on Thursday evening. It was therefore to a very “Paul Pogbesque” Aurélien Tchouaméni on Thursday evening, monstrous at all levels, that the Blues gave instructions to blow the green bolt. How ? Easy, with a shot from outside the area, not without reminding us of his scud against the English in the quarter-finals of the Qatari World Cup. A jewel of mastery of the shot, from the flat of the foot, without even forcing, using the force of the ball on Mbappé’s beautiful throw-back to tickle poor Banuzu’s small opposite net.
A first for Marcus Thuram
“We are happy because we wanted to continue our momentum, it’s done this evening, we are satisfied. I felt good, I’ve been gaining strength since the start of the season. The coach trusts me, he gave me instructions which I respected, there is this goal too which is the icing on the cake, he commented in the aisles of the Parc des Princes. The staff analyzed the opposing team’s play well, we knew that it was going to be a really grouped block, so we had to try shots from afar, that’s what I did, mine went in, I’m thrilled. »
Once the hard part was done, the vice world champions purred a lot in the first period, before finally shaking off their fleas a little after returning from the locker room. We will particularly remember this superb pivot goal from Marcus Thuram, potato option under the bar, his first in Blue, at the start of the second half. The new Inter striker had infectious joy, he who had replaced an injured Giroud in the first period. “It was a great pride and satisfaction to score, especially in a stadium like the Parc des Princes,” he declared on TF1 after the match. I could have put two, I hope it will be for the next matches. »
Deschamps applauds the performance of his players
As a big brother, Dayot Upamecano, one of the rare Blues to appear in the mixed zone (with Tchouaméni) after the match, preferred to keep his miss – this point-blank header missed who knows how – unmissable. “I congratulated him on his goal but he should have scored two (laughs)!” laughed the Bayern defender. I told him he should have put it on, but he had to close his eyes”. For the rest, we are not so new to being surprised by the overall performance of Didier Deschamps’ team, for whom the result will always count more than the manner. And with five victories in five matches and a (quasi) qualification for Euro 2024 in Germany – even if the coach will continue to warn us that as long as nothing is done, nothing is done. And we will continue not to believe it – hard to be choosy.
This is more or less what Deschamps said in the post-match conference. “We can always be choosy but we did everything we had to to win this game. We created a lot of chances. We had a very compact block opposite. In the first period, we could have put more speed into the transmissions but we scored two goals and we haven’t conceded in five games, he noted. This takes us a little further towards our objective. The regret is to have had a large number of chances and to have scored only two goals. We had a lot of shots from distance but overall I’m satisfied and proud of what the players did. It is an important step. We’ve had an ideal course so far but we’re not going to sleep on that. “Next meeting in the playoffs, on October 13, in the Netherlands.