From our Special Envoy in Doha,
The same idea but two ways of exposing them to you, storm under a skull… At the time of approaching this paper on Hugo Lloris, who became Saturday evening against England the most capped player in the history of the team of France in front of Lilian Thuram (143 selections for the first, 142 for the second), we hesitated for a long time about the identity of the right person to paraphrase. To choose is to give up, said André Gide. Well today we will not give up. After all, we are qualified for the semi-finals, we can have a little fun and give ourselves a double dose of literature. And that way, there will be something for all ages and all tastes.
- First quote, freely adapted from a song by rapper Kaaris
“I only trust my Desert Eagle and Hugo Lloris in World Cup knockout matches. »
- Second quote, freely adapted from a certain Albert Einstein
“Two things are endless: the Universe and the power of Hugo Lloris in World Cup knockout matches. But as far as the Universe is concerned, I have not yet acquired absolute certainty. »
You will have understood it – moreover you have seen it like us – the captain of the Blues delivered a strong maousse score on Saturday evening against the Three Lions. We counted no less than six stops, of which at least two are from the mark of the very great. The first, this ultra-fast outing ahead of Harry Kane, who had put Théo Hernandez in the wind and was about to equalize after Aurélien Tchouaméni’s opener in the first quarter of an hour, before Lloris don’t say “we’re not going to pass my man”. The second, this monstrous tap to deflect for a corner a strike of the same ilk signed Jude Bellingham on the return from the locker room.
We found the Lloris of 2018
If the Tottenham goalkeeper could not do anything about the first peno of his great friend Harry Kane – and that we have long since abandoned the idea of seeing him one day achieve a clearance that is even slightly correct on foot – his small movements on his line before the English captain rushes to sanction the second penalty of the match are perhaps not for nothing in the failure of the Spurs striker. The great goalkeepers also know how to provoke luck at the right time and, on Saturday, it rather succeeded for him, like this too crossed header from Maguire on his post.
After a start to the World Cup oscillating between average and correct against Australia and Poland, despite a big save against the Danes in a crucial moment of the second group match, we have the feeling of having finally found the Lloris of 2018, the one who, with the exception of his cagade in the final against Croatia, loved all the balls and entered the heads of his opponents to better suck their soul from the inside.
Seeing that, we can’t help but think back (and laugh) at what our English colleagues wrote before the meeting, they who presented Lloris as the weak point of this French team and who didn’t hesitate, without laugh, them, to swear/spit that if they had to choose to go to war with Jordan Pickford or the former doorman Lyonnais, they would sign for the Everton keepercurrent 17th in the Premier League.
But we know too much about the focus problem of our friends across the Channel when it comes to analyzing the real talent of some of their players not to take them seriously from the start. A bit like Lloris himselfwho had declined the proposal of a colleague from The Team to react to these vile media attacks. “I’m not going to settle accounts at a press conference. They have the right to think what they want, the only answer I would have is on the pitch,” he warned.
Lloris affected by Kane’s distress
And we saw the result. Kingsley Coman too: “Hugo had a great match, an extraordinary match even! He saved us many times tonight.” As for the person concerned, he did not wish to dwell more than that on his match, simply explaining that he had “been more in demand than since the start of the competition” and that he had “tried to help the team as much as possible”. In reality, the guardian of the French temple appeared with a serious face in the mixed zone, far from what one might imagine after qualifying for the semi-finals of the World Cup.
On the contrary, he seemed touched by something. The answer is not long. We understand that it is the penalty missed by Harry Kane, the very one who made him belch at the time because he had probably just sealed the last English hopes of returning to the match. But cold, it is no longer the semi-finalist who speaks but the friend of the English number 10.
“I’ll be honest with you, at the moment there are emotions, we’re in the middle of a battle, in the middle of a match and of course we’re happy because it’s a key moment. But the man that I am is saddened because he is a teammate that I have known for a long time, a man that I respect enormously and someone who took responsibility at an important moment in the game. Unfortunately for him and England he puts it over, and fortunately of course for the France team, because it was a turning point. I know he’s strong and he’ll get over it. But I can share this moment of pain with him. »
Unbeatable on his line as in friendship, Lloris would almost make us forget his grotesque positions at the start of the Mondial on the subject of the “One Love” armband. Finally, no, you shouldn’t push either, but let’s say that, like Kylian Mbappé with his feet, we never love him as much as when he speaks with his gloved hands.