The Blues have completed their first week of preparation for the Euro perfectly. – FRANCK FIFE / AFP
- The Blues easily won against Wales (3-0) on Wednesday night at the Allianz Riviera in Nice.
- Less than two weeks before the kick-off of the Euro, all signals are green for the France team.
- From the good understanding of the attacking trio to the Olympic form of Tolisso through the quality of the sidelines, the Blues have enough to feed great hopes this summer.
In Nice,
The France team ended its first week of preparation with a rather convincing victory (3-0) against Wales on Wednesday, even if the context – a Welsh team largely altered at kick-off and a numerical superiority of the Blues who skewed the deal a little from the 25th minute of play – must force us to be cautious.
Nevertheless, according to Didier Deschamps himself, “France had control of the match and could even have worsened the score with a little more success in the last gesture”. Not enough to climb the curtain, not yet, but it would be damn bad faith not to see that with the gear he has at his disposal, the coach has enough to do great things on the roads of the Europe covidated this summer.
- An attacking trio that is (already) with its eyes closed
It was THE big question around this first prep match, whether the Griezmann-Benzema-Mbappé trio would succeed in translating on the pitch all the good that we thought of him in our sweetest dreams. And the answer is unequivocal: yes, a thousand times yes! Well, as Benzema said after the meeting, there are still things to “polish”, reflexes to find, adjustments to be made in the positioning of each other (yes, we are talking about you Kyky, who refuses two times out of three to take the depth by coming to claim the ball in the feet), but overall this five-star association seems already ready for the fight.
- Lloris at the top of the top (for a change)
For his hundredth as captain of the France team (his 124th selection in total), Hugo Lloris once again responded on Wednesday evening, notably making an intergalactic class stop on the only shot on target from the Welsh in the second half. Not that we doubted the talent of the Spurs goalkeeper, but seeing Lloris take the necessary stop when it is necessary, moreover in a match where he was tempting to take a nap, reassured us on the ability of the former Lyonnais to tip the scales in our favor at the Euro.
- In front, substitutes bordering on indecency
We put ourselves in the place of the poor defenders who, not content to have stuffed themselves for an hour with the attacking trio that even the Martians envy us, see substitutes called Kinglsey Coman and Ousmane Dembélé come into play. We do not take much risk by saying that these two would start in 98% of the teams involved in the next European Championship. On Wednesday, the Munich and Barcelona took full advantage of the thirty minutes offered to them by the coach, happily taking advantage of the fatigue of the opposing defenders to sting where it hurts: on the percussion and lightning accelerations on the sides. If ever the titu ‘fail to get the job done on time, DD can always bring in his luxury dragsters to polish the rendering.
- Tolisso will give DD headaches
Grosso-merdo, the 67 million coaches that we are could already give the official line-up which will begin on June 15 in Munich against Germany. With one exception, perhaps, in the middle of the field. Because if Rabiot seemed to have a boulevard in front of him after the departure of Blaise Matuidi, it is not impossible that there is something new under the sun. And the new one is Coco Tolisso.
Income from who knows where (and we don’t know how) after a serious injury that would have caused any normal human being to forfeit the Euro, the Bayern midfielder is making a comeback to the fore quite stunning. Aligned as a sentinel in the diamond-shaped middle drawn by Deschamps, the Bayern midfielder materialized in an hour of play all the good that we had thought of him during the first training sessions at Clairefontaine. Enough to push the Duke onto the bench in less than 15 days? We are slowly starting to believe it.
- Deschamps welcomes the “state of mind” of the 26
Deschamps repeated it again on Wednesday evening at a press conference, he “attaches as much importance if not more” to the state of mind that drives his group of 26 players as to the very quality of the game deployed. . And on this point too, the results are more than positive after a first week of living together. We were thus able to feel in front of the Welsh the famous “positive waves” about which Guy Stéphan spoke to us in an interview last week.
The most telling example of course being this exchange full of complicity between Griezmann and Benzema, when the Barcelona player offered the Madrilenian the right to draw the peno in his place. We may have lacked proximity with this group due to the absence of a mixed zone after the matches, the training at Clairefontaine, punctuated by this success obtained in good humor, is enough for us to say that these 26 there enjoy being together. . On the edge of an international competition, this is a detail that can be important.