From our Special Envoy in Doha,
The Blues pose a case of conscience when it comes to facing Morocco this Wednesday in the semi-finals of the World Cup. But of the positive kind, which makes us want to dig ourselves into the carafe to understand how a team first struck with the seal of scoumoune, amputated from a plethora of its best elements, can find itself a month later in the last four of a World Cup, four years after being crowned in Russia, and trying to achieve a historic double. We remember having written here a few weeks ago that this feat was not possible as it stands and that basically it was not that serious. Because at the table of contenders for the supreme title, we had already been well spoiled over the past 25 years. And yet here we are again.
Let’s be clear, we are not removing a line from what was said. Because that was the meaning of the story, because the Jules Rimet Trophy is almost never offered twice in a row to the same hands. Because it’s just too complicated in modern football for nations to stay at the top with such regularity. Talk to the last three Italian, Spanish and German world champions, they will tell you the difficulty, not of defending your title, just that of getting out of the pools four years after being crowned. And yet here we are again.
What the Blues have been doing for six years, but one could also say forty years (six World Cup semi-finals out of the last nine participations!) with three accessions in the last four out of the four international competitions disputed, is truly mind-blowing . Abnormal, even, if we take the words of Claude Onesta, the former coach of the Blues of the hand who, in terms of victories, still touches his ball a little. Deschamps may have said the evening of the announcement of his list that this statistic did not scare him because all the stats are made to be contradicted, we did not buy. AND YET WE WERE BACK!
“We are really spoiled”
Stuffed with thrills since DD took the keys to the van, the French supporters are lucky ones. Asked to tell us if they were aware of living through a blessed period in the history of French football, everyone nodded. Laura, 22, who dreamed of living her own “France 98”, knows she is privileged: “With a little hindsight, I who have practically only known the Deschamps era, I realize how lucky I am. I wish I could live this golden era. But I’m still not satisfied! You quickly get used to happiness and the firmament. But the small hiccups are there to remind us that nothing is certain and that we are extremely lucky to maintain ourselves at such a high level for a long time. “From the top of his 60 years, Bruno, him, knew the painful periods, “the defeat against Germany in 82” when “we played well but we lost”. So today it’s maxed out. “We are really spoiled,” he said. Hope it lasts ! “.
“We now look the Germans, Italians or Brazilians in the eye. We are no longer the small nation of football capable of exploits but a pool of talent that makes doubt and thwart the best selections, rejoices Romain, 40 years old. To see if this will last over time. Good times are often followed by crossings of the desert and we have already experienced this with the Domenech period. Euro 2021 reminded us that it was all still hanging on a thread. You have to savor these moments because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But France has undeniably entered the big leagues. »
Although he is (perhaps) not an avid reader of 20 minutes, we also asked the question to Raphaël Varane to see if, from the inside, the group also realized the scope of its performances. “We are aware that what we have been doing for years is something big, but it is difficult to really realize it, he explained. We stay focused on what is in front of us, that’s how we built our success and that’s how we will continue. We’ll figure it all out when it’s over. If possible on the evening of December 19, not before.
A collective strength
This being said, let us now try to understand how and why the fairy leaned over our cradle to pamper us like spoiled rotten children. But can we even explain what touches on the irrational, what is not moved by any logic? By definition, no. Or else, for that, we need something solid, the kind who knows about hegemony and longevity. So we called Jérôme Fernandez, pillar of the invincible French handball players for almost 20 years. For him, the similarities between the Blues of the hand and the Deschamps band are numerous.
“A coach who has been there for quite some time and who relies on a framework that has a lot of experience, despite the absence of executive players. The Lloris, Varane, Griezmann, Giroud, guys who have their habits, who have the culture of winning and who perform when needed. You add to that young talents who have been well integrated by the old ones, and that already gives you leads. There is no miracle recipe of course, but we have relied on these same ingredients for thirty years and it worked. »
Asked Tuesday at a press conference about the secrets of such success, Didier Deschamps used the same expression. “There is no miracle recipe”, he said before finally delivering some ingredients: “It’s an amalgam of many things: the quality of the players, the collective strength, the state of spirit. And then some matches are close to nothing. As for collective strength, enough has been written about it not to come back to it too much. Yes, it’s a fact, this group seems to be guided by a force that goes beyond us, a clever mix of trust, faith and luck, too. These are the famous little things that the coach talks about and that tilt the course of a match in your favor and not in that of the opponent. For convenience (and also because it makes us laugh) we call it “Dédé’s pussy”.
Luck, a friend who wants you well
At the beginning of the 21st century, another glorious period of the Blues where the tomcat in Deschamps did not yet exist, it had another name. When a colleague pointed out to him, in the documentary The Investigation Team on the victory at Euro 2000, that in the final the Blues had passed to that of the defeat against the Italians, Youri Djorkaeff smiled: “It is the control”. Franck Leboeuf and Bixente Lizarazu were more cash. The first spoke of “a monstrous chance of cuckolding”, the second remembered “Wiltord’s strike [qui] passes between the legs of a defender and under the arm of the goalkeeper” before adding with a laugh “the bastards!!! “.
“But it’s not for nothing that luck always succeeds with big teams, theorizes Fernandez. She provokes herself. On our cycle of domination between 2008 and 2012, when we were Olympic champions in Beijing, I had the impression that whatever opponent we faced, nothing could happen to us because we were sure of our strength and that we were provoking this famous chance. They are the same. The penalty missed by Kane the other day, I’m not sure it would have happened to Griezmann or Mbappé. Not to mention Giroud’s goal, which is in the right place at the right time. This is what makes the strength of great teams, this management of the key moments of a meeting.
Know how to endure to finally sting when it hurts the most, let the opponent gain confidence and believe in his destiny to finally tap him on the shoulder, show him the instructions and destroy him psychologically. A journalist from Guardian summed it up perfectly after the Three Lions defeat: “The English believed in it. The French knew it. Jérôme Fernandez: “It was the same for us, whether against the Croats or the Danes. We knew we had so much experience and cohesion that, in key moments, we were going to make the difference. This is what happened for the Blues in the quarter-finals. And when it happens to you, you have to take advantage of the moment and ride the wave to leave nothing to others, because we know that domination is not eternal. As long as it lasts until the end of the month, that’s fine with us. After that, we promise, we pass the torch (or not).