With senior players on their toes, a failing team game and a coach under pressure: the French team, slapped by Italy on Friday (3-1), continues to sink, two months after a Euro-2024 which had already highlighted its current limits.
. A worrying slope
Heavily criticized after a very disappointing European Championship in terms of spectacle and offensive animation (4 goals in six matches, only one of which was scored in open play), the Blues and Didier Deschamps had taken refuge behind their accession to the semi-finals to defend themselves. But the argument of the result was shattered at the Parc des Princes against Italy, although announced to be in the midst of a crisis.
Since the beginning of the year, the French team seems to have squandered all its achievements and is slowly but surely sinking. After a perfectly successful post-World Cup 2022 transition and a virtually perfect qualifying campaign for the Euro (7 wins, 1 draw), 2024 marked a turning point with an accounting record unworthy of a vice-world champion (4 wins, 4 draws, 3 losses) and a game that is falling apart with each outing.
The defense, the keystone of the Blues under Deschamps and whose solidity had allowed them to once again reach the last four of a major competition in Germany, was overwhelmed against the Nazionale, a sign that the fire has now spread to all levels.
. Deschamps on a wire
The heavy setback of the French team inevitably weakens its boss. Having arrived at the helm of the Tricolores in 2012 and still under contract until 2026, Didier Deschamps was confirmed by the president of the French Federation Philippe Diallo, after a very laborious Euro. But this mark of confidence had not extinguished the questions despite the technician’s extraordinary record (world champion in 2018, finalist of the World Cup-2022 and Euro-2016, winner of the League of Nations 2021).
Friday’s poor performance has rekindled the debate on a possible end to the cycle and puts him under strong pressure before the reception of Belgium, Monday in Lyon.
Deschamps had been able to justify the difficulties encountered at the Euro by the poor physical form of his two technical leaders Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann. While acknowledging “his responsibility” in the failure against the Italians, he used the same argument, pointing out the lack of “athletic abilities” of his players and the changes compared to his starting eleven which harmed, according to him, “the collective performance”.
Without two of its pillars in midfield (Aurélien Tchouaméni, Adrien Rabiot), with a somewhat reworked defense and two 22-year-olds in attack (Bradley Barcola, Michael Olise), the team lined up was indeed experimental. But it was above all the lack of overall drive that stood out, falling under the direct responsibility of the coach.
. Mbappé’s discomfort
What’s happening to Kylian Mbappé? The superstar, unable to pull his team up as in the past, has appeared to be in great difficulty for several months on the technical and physical levels and his statistics are strongly affected. The third best scorer in the history of the Blues has only found the back of the net once in his last eight matches with the French team, a penalty against Poland at the Euro, and was again ineffective against Italy, alone at the forefront of the attack.
Not very comfortable in the No.9 position, he will nevertheless have to get used to this position in the future, since Vinicius is unshakeable at Real Madrid on the left and the Blues must deal with the emergence of Barcola on the same side, as well as the absence of credible solutions among the centre forwards.
Equally worrying, the captain seemed unusually demotivated and unconcerned during his pre-match press conference, a far cry from his usual ease in this exercise. The welcome at the Parc, which he was returning to for the first time since leaving PSG? “I don’t care,” he replied. “What people think” of the style of the Blues, “is the least of my worries,” he also said. He also didn’t show much desire for the Nations League. “We’ve already won it (in 2021), it didn’t generate any extraordinary enthusiasm,” he said. On and off the pitch, the malaise is palpable.
kn-eba/nip/zub
