It’s D-day for the Blues who will play their first match of Euro 2024 in Düsseldorf in Germany. This Monday, June 17 at 9:00 p.m., the players of the French team face Austria, before the Netherlands and Poland. If the broadcast of the competition is shared between TF1, M6 and beIN Sports, the L’Equipe channel is mobilizing by offering numerous live broadcasts with essential faces for their loyal viewers. Among them, Giovanni Castaldi who serves as a columnist and alternating host of The evening team, the show that breaks down sports news. His analysis of the Blues in the competition, his career within the channel, the fame of his family… The journalist spoke to Télé-Loisirs.
Giovanni Castaldi (The Team) reveals his predictions for Euro 2024: “I don’t put the French team as a big favorite”
Tele-Leisure : Who is the favorite team for this Euro 2024 according to you?
Giovanni Castaldi: I will say England even if they sometimes struggle a little in major competitions. We saw it during the last World Cup, where they lost in the quarter against the Blues, although in my opinion, they were a little better. The coach has been in place for a long time, it’s a team that knows how to defend well, and which has two world-class players in Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane.
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What are the chances of The french team in this competition?
I don’t put the French team as a big favorite because I have uncertainties about the defense. I don’t know to what extent the funny season that Kylian Mbappé experienced with Paris Saint-Germain and his current physical condition, will have an impact on the team’s performance. He has back pain, a little discomfort in his knee…
Did the announcement of his transfer to Real Madrid free him before the start of this competition?
We feel that it did him a lot of good. Mentally, he will be at 2000%. It’s been a long time since I felt this motivated. He will certainly gain strength during the competition. I already found it rather good against Luxembourg (friendly match on June 5, editor’s note) and it remains a huge champion.
At what stage can we consider that the Blues will have had a good tournament?
Minimum semi-finals. The group really has crazy determination to win a Euro after the final in 2016 which they lost to Portugal and the huge crash against the Swiss in 2021. And this is the last major competition for Olivier Giroud who we nickname “the dad” in the group… A page is starting to turn in the team so they want to go to the end.
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Giovanni Castaldi on his famous last name: “I really had the feeling of not being legitimate”
Are you able to easily switch between your role as columnist and host? chain The Team ?
This is not a problem, knowing that I am not the holder of the presentation. My main role remains to be a debater and columnist. In my opinion, a columnist is sometimes more important than the presenter : he has a responsibility because we have an opinion, we cannot say everything and anything. Besides that, I flourish more and more with the presenter’s hat: being at the heart of the discussions and redirecting them with my own perspective… It’s great for me who is passionate about debate.
Would you like to move more towards presentation?
I would like to do a lot more even if I hadn’t set out with that in mind. The first years when I started as a journalist, I didn’t go on air. It was offered to me because some editors thought I wasn’t too bad. (He smiles)
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Did you feel like you had to prove yourself more being the son of Jean-Pierre Castaldi and the brother of Benjamin Castaldi?
Having a well-known name must make certain things easier, but there is also the other side of the coin: people expect you more. At the beginning, I really felt like I wasn’t legitimate and that I had to find my place.. But I put myself in the shoes of any other journalist. We see the “son of” Arriving in an editorial office, we say to ourselves: “He is here because his father, because his brother…” DSo I think that the climate of mistrust is logical at first. I took it a little to heart at first but not anymore.
Giovanni Castaldi gives news of Olivier Ménard after his attack: “He is in shock but he is fine”
What about today ?
I have had the chance to meet extremely kind people in my work, but on social networks, some systematically refer to me by my last name. What annoys me deeply is when I receive fifty insulting messages calling me a “pistoned”. We can be criticized but I preferred to be told: “You don’t understand anything about football, you’re useless” rather than bring me back to my name. Especially since my father and my brother have nothing to do with sport or journalism, I pursued my career on my own.
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You had a thought for Olivier Ménard on air last Friday continued to the attack he suffered. How is he ?
With Mémé, we are very close, we call each other very often. It has a special place in my professional life and in my personal life. He’s still in shock and that’s normal. But he is doing well, he is with his partner and his children. He can’t wait to get back on the air.
