The retirement of Franck Ribéry – French team: unique trajectory for a player apart

His first retirement, international, Franck Ribéry had announced it in assumed anonymity. In the middle of August 2014. The 14th, to be completely precise and give you an idea of ​​the timing. In the heart of the summer torpor, one could not do more incognito and further from the noise of the world. At that time, after 81 selections, Ribéry no longer wanted to.

A World Cup lived from afar, due to a recalcitrant back (and low morale, too), a Ballon d’Or which had unfairly escaped him the previous fall, partly because of his eyes France football had not supported him enough: it was a lot for one man. It was a lot for Ribéry, especially.

Character on edge, with leather not thick enough for a guy of his caliber, the attacker will have been, throughout his career, able to lift mountains or tumble to the thirty-sixth below according to his morale at the time.

After ZZ, it had to be Ribéry

This story began in the mid-2000s when the UFO Ribéry appeared on the lawns of Metz. We didn’t really know where he came from. We just knew that he had quite a boost, a strange rage and a certain talent. Passed under the radar among young people because of his behavior and his school results in particular, the winger recognizable by his scar on his face had decided not to let the second pass.

The world of football discovered it in Moselle. The general public got to know his freshness, his childish jokes and his sometimes random phrasing in Germany. Called on the gong by Raymond Domenech when he broke everything at OM, he would be one of the spearheads of the French team at the 2006 World Cup.

Replacing Sylvain Wiltord at the start of the competition, rebellious scorer against Spain and finally essential starter, Franck Ribéry then became THE successor to the vice-world champions. Zinédine Zidane retired, the OM player is obvious. She’s blinding herself, even. After Zizou, it will be Francky. He becomes a rival, too, for Thierry Henry. Ribéry wants the armband, claims it. He will never have it.

In any case, it would have done no one a favor, as the atmosphere of this French team without head or tail – if not that, rickety, of Raymond Domenech – was flawed. The Bavarian also participates in this degradation of the climate among the Blues, by his claims on the ground in particular. We could also spend hours talking about his toxic relationship with Yoann Gourcuff, who in turn became ZZ’s successor, which was not necessarily to delight him. We will simply say that she has finished filling the air in the castle.

The abyss and the inaudible

Tap-socks and tied throat on the set of Téléfoot in front of a Domenech of which we do not really know what he thinks, Ribéry arrives that day like a dog in a game of skittles. Sportingly, France is drowning. His complaints and the “suffering” he reports, sincere, that of his teammates, on the morning of a strike which was to plunge France into the abyss, will quickly be inaudible. Ribéry definitely changed that Sunday. His relationship with the French public, too.

If the exceptional footballer continued to inspire respect, because we must not forget to point out that he was, between 2006 and 2016, the best player of the Blues – and by far – the heart was now out of sight. At the time of concluding an exceptional year 2013, with a victory in the Champions League, a crazy play-off against Ukraine and his repeated exploits on the grounds of Germany, this is moreover what the number 7 Bayern held back when he saw the Ballon d’Or slipping through his feet. This Ballon d’Or, he greatly deserved it.

The extension of the duration of the ballot, unfair and decided at the last moment, as well as the lack of support from France of football and a latent disenchantment will have sounded the death knell for its already distended relationship with France. We would only see him again during a twenty-six minute long lap of honor, one evening in March 2014 against the Netherlands. An evening when a certain Antoine Griezmann honored his first cape with the French team of Didier Deschamps. Symbolically. A little more than that, no doubt.