At the Parc des Princes,
Let’s get this straight from the start. Yes, we jumped like goats in the 2022 World Cup final when Kylian Mbappé equalised against Argentina. Yes, we broke our voices when they won the World Cup four years earlier. Yes, we also knocked over a cup of coffee when Dimitri Payet scored a monumental goal against Romania at Euro 2016. Yes, Didier Deschamps has made our hair stand on end since he took over the French national football team.
But, like the shortest stories that are often the best, DD’s with the Blues is starting to get old and, twelve years after his appointment, we can feel that the thrills of the beginnings are giving way to the routine of everyday life. The one that doesn’t make waves, the one that takes away your sparkling eye when you wake up, the one that makes you put on and put back on your T-shirt with holes in the armpits while mumbling: “Boaaarf, it’s okay.” Except that now, it’s not okay anymore, Didier.
The magic of the Olympic Games has vanished
After a soporific Euro in the game, where they still managed to reach the semi-finals we don’t know how, the Blues started again on the same bases in this 2024-2025 return, with a new defeat, Friday against Italy (1-3), when everything had started well. In line with fabulous Olympic and Paralympic Games for the French delegation, the spectators, with smiles on their lips, equipped with their little tricolor flag, were delighted to see the French team again.
The same one that, despite being deprived of its main strengths, had made it capsize during the Olympic final played in this same Parc des Princes. And it only took thirteen seconds for all these great people to surf on this surge of ecstasy after Bradley Barcola reminded Giovanni Di Lorenzo of bad memories, he who had suffered so much against Nico Williams during the Euro. The fastest goal in the history of the Blues, the Italians – some of whom struggled to properly perform the five-meter passing exercise during the warm-up – in the lurch, an attacking quartet (Barcola, Olise, Griezmann, Mbappé) exciting on paper, it was certain, we were in for a drunken evening.
But the hangover arrived much earlier than expected, just as Italy painted its first canvas of the evening – a model of collective action, concluded by a close-range header from Frattesi on the bar (6th) – before the curtain fell on the Parisian scene. Black screen and head in the bucket for the Blues. “We made a very good start with this goal, good pressure on the opponent, then it was more complicated, explained the coach at the end of the match. It was difficult to maintain this intensity throughout a match.”
Behind Barcola, the desert
We didn’t necessarily ask for ninety minutes at this pace, but a little more than ten. Because the rest of the match was nothing but suffering for the Blues. “We didn’t have the athletic ability to maintain that, with technical errors, regretted Didier Deschamps. We lost duels and gave the ball away.” Not only that: a chronic inability to create danger, apart from Barcola’s crazy breakthroughs, the ghostly full-backs offensively, a permeable defense, a midfield of nameless feverishness…
With only this Fofana-Kante duo to control the midfield, Luciano Spaletti, the coach of the Nazionale, had also understood that this was where France would sink. “He told us to find the extra man in this area of the pitch, and to always be strong to make a difference. I think that was a key reading of the match,” confided to 20 Minutes Atalanta player Marco Brescianini.
So, while Frattesi and Tonali (who had hardly played for a year) imposed their law, the Blues remained apathetic, their coach in the lead, obliged to watch the lesson given by the Italians, with three magnificently constructed goals, the complete opposite of what Mbappé and his ilk can offer.
” I’m not going to be satisfied with what we did. We have to accept it without making excuses. It’s my responsibility and it always will be, conceded Didier Deschamps. We weren’t collectively up to par with what Italy offered us. We were below par, apart from the first twenty minutes, but we have to do more than what we did. »
Individualities, only individualities
Except that for several months now the French team has “had to do more” than what it produces. And it has been many months since it did so. And although the Blues have, on paper, offensive firepower, collectively it achieves nothing. Asked precisely if he had been surprised by the French collective, Brescianini only answered us… about the players: “The French team has incredible individuals. They are all phenomena.”
Phenomena, perhaps, but few were very visible on Friday night, apart from Barcola, even if he faded after the lemons. Gianluigi Donnarumma was thus much less worried than his French counterpart. In short, the whole evening resembled a huge shipwreck for the Blues.
” Shipwreck, I think it’s a bit harsh, reacted Manu Koné, who celebrated his first selection against the Italians. We need to be a bit more efficient in both areas. It’s not a question of fragility, we need to do better, we have the qualities, there are some very great players in this team. »
Zidane’s name chanted
But there is not necessarily a very great team. And the Parc des Princes crowd understood this well, accompanying the French players to the whistles. There were even a few “Zizou, Zizou”, sung by the group of supporters of the French Irréductibles at the end of the match. A first revolution around these Blues, while Didier Deschamps’ mission extends, for the moment, until the 2026 World Cup.
“The results of the past speak in his favour and the objectives have been achieved,” justified Philippe Diallo, the president of the French Football Federation, when he confirmed the former midfielder of the Blues. “I don’t see any reason to question his contract.” The spectators of the French team are starting to see quite a bit of it.