Saturday evening, French streamers met their Spanish counterparts in Madrid. An expected meeting which had some success on Twitch. Enough to overshadow the real French team and alert Didier Deschamps.
A passionate Marseille player, an electric atmosphere and lots of post-match debates around the French team. No, it is not Israel-France that is being discussed here but Spain-France, the match between two teams of streamers. The event was organized on Saturday evening at the Stadio Metropolitano in Madrid. The Atlético Madrid stadium was rather well stocked for this relatively modest match, concluded by the Spaniards’ 2-0 success. The excitement was the same on the internet and on the Twitch streaming service which broadcast the match. There were up to a million simultaneously watching the match on their screen.
The French team must win back the audience
A popular success which contrasts with the French public’s disinterest in the real French team. Thursday evening, Israel-France did not even attract 4 million viewers on the country’s leading channel TF1. This constituted one of the worst historical audiences for the Blues on television. The small audience gap between this official match and a folk match on the internet alerts Kevin Diaz. The RMC consultant believes that the low level of play of the French team and the lack of questioning from Didier Deschamps create a real danger for French football.
« If the French team, the players, Didier Deschamps and especially at the head of the federation, they do not understand that two days ago there were less than 4 million viewers for a match of the French team. France. And that this evening in a stream of guys who aren’t even amateurs in Madrid, guys who don’t even play football, there are some who don’t even know how to pass 20 meters away, there were almost a million spectators on Twitch. […] The leaders of our football do not realize that when the coach says “If people are not happy, they just have to change the channel”, people change the channel and will continue to do so. We’re going to have to change things and I’m not even talking to you about Ligue 1 TV rights… “, he explained in After Foot. We will still have to wait for the next Belgium-France on Monday evening to establish a definitive conclusion after an Israel-France which was unattractive on paper and played behind closed doors.
