In Paderborn,
As long as Didier Deschamps is the coach of the French team – that is to say until 2058 according to the Crystal Ball of the sports department of 20 minutes – the debate on the playing identity of the Blues will emerge in the light of each major international competition. So, since we have to stick to it, we might as well resolve this issue now to be easy afterwards.
Crowned world champion in Russia in 2018, the French team was judged guilty of playing a vapid game, without much flavor or real desire to put stars in the retinas of the French. Since then, this label has never left her. Is right ? A little all the same, the World Cup in Qatar having only confirmed this observation but with, on arrival, the result that we know, an almost perfect course until this damn penalty shootout against Argentina .
“You have to sit on a good defensive base”
Whether we agree with Deschamps or not, he has to agree that, on paper, the guy would be wrong to change his mind and we must therefore expect once again to suffer in front of the matches of the Blues this summer. But can players push the ugliness slider even higher than it has been in recent years? Yes, if we remember the strong Antoine Griezmann who died at the start of the rally.
“For me, the key, even if it’s boring, is defense. We have to be a solid team, tough in duels and strong defensively. This is what will allow us to go as far as possible. It’s annoying to watch. Very annoying to watch. But hey, that’s how it is, it makes you win,” he announced point-blank. A philosophy which today seems to be shared by the rest of the team, as evidenced by the words of his friend Olivier Giroud, who was questioned at a press conference on Thursday.
“Our style of play has been the same since the coach took charge of the Blues: we have to sit on a good defensive base, as ‘Grizi’ said, and be well in place. But it can’t be just that. You also have to rely on good offensive animation and play as you know how to do when you have the ball. There is a balance to find but yes, of course, to win a competition like the Euro you have to be solid behind. In 2016, we were solid, in 2018 the same, in 2022 too. Our game is more focused on attacks in quick transition, sitting on a big defensive base. »
Finally, in a more concise (and more diplomatic) style, in the mouth of Pavard, it goes like this: “We are a united team. We have to know how to suffer as a team and we know how to do it, and up front we have so much talent that we can make the difference at any time. » It’s nothing to say that DD’s software was perfectly integrated and accepted by its flock. It’s difficult to blame them because, at the end of the day, in the collective imagination, the only memories that we will pass on to our grandchildren during fishing trips or other mushroom picking in the forest will be those of a blessed period. A period when football was a sport that was played eleven against eleven but where, in the end, it was (often) the Blues who won.
In selection, time is a rare commodity
The coach cites as proof that other nations would exchange their quest for aesthetics every day for a tenth of our results on the international scene over the last ten years. “Go look elsewhere and you will see what they will tell you. It’s not about being boring or not. The word is to be efficient, he replied on the channel The Team a few days ago. The more we have the ball, the better. But when you don’t have it, at the high level, you have to be able to defend. We were world champions. Are we a good or a bad champion? We were champions. » Drop the mic’Didier.
The question we have to ask ourselves, basically, is whether we can win a World Cup or a Euro other than by being both boring to play and boring to watch. The examples of Portugal in 2016 and Italy in 2021 already provide the beginnings of an answer. Managing a national team and managing a club on a daily basis are two diametrically opposed things.
With the short meeting time during the year and players scattered across the four corners of Europe, some playing under the orders of Diego Simeone, others of Mikel Arteta, who do not really share the same idea football, it is difficult to aspire to play like Guardiola’s Barça. No, we must accept the idea of relying above all on fundamentals, even basic/crazy ones, those which will allow, over the course of a summer and a competition, to earn the right to go and see what the weather is like. in the next round.
France-Austria, the style opposition par excellence
And if Ralf Rangnick, the Austrian coach whom the Blues will meet on Monday in Düsseldorf, an apostle of the beautiful game if ever there was one, declared on Sunday to The Team that his “priority has always been to enthuse the public, to ensure that they do not get bored”, he nonetheless remains obliged to prostrate himself before the king of efficiency. “Deschamps is doing a magnificent job with the Blues. The results of recent years and his longevity speak in his favor. He favors a 4-3-3 with a lot of discipline, movement and passing play. This is the DNA of the France team. »
As for whether the France team’s Euro 2024 is preparing to be the coach’s masterpiece, the most complete expression of his pragmatism – ugly for the eyes, beautiful for the trophy cabinet – we will have to wait for the first matches to tell. For his part, Daniel Bravo is mixed. For the consultant beIN Sports, which is broadcasting the entire competition this summer, “we are too strict with our Blues and we are choosy”.
“Obviously it is Deschamps’ philosophy to first defend well and then count on talented players in attack,” he concedes in the preamble. But I think he has evolved a little in recent years and he no longer hesitates to field four attackers, even if Griezmann is lower on the pitch since the World Cup in Qatar. He has more confidence in his team and he makes them take more risks, I think that’s good. » Once again, only the pitch will speak and the first match against Austria will tell us who, Bravo or us, the haters, was right. What is certain is that we could not have dreamed of a better way to resolve this debate than this poster against the Austria of the aesthete and the Blues of the needy.