When they set foot on the tarmac of Charles-de-Gaulle airport, this Monday at the end of the afternoon, a month after leaving France, the Blues will have, more than the feeling of duty accomplished, the immense satisfaction at having changed the course of history.
Before them, futsal was considered more of a game that you watch from a distance when you didn’t fall into it when you were little, or a street football without any other framework. With them, it has become a sport that the public is passionate about following live, to the rhythm of the prowess of charismatic players like the scorer Abdessamad Mohammed or the goalkeeper Francis Lokoka.
“Proud to be there”
Sunday, after losing the small final quite clearly (1-7) against Ukraine, there was no question of retaining this last match which still carried with it the wound of the semi-final lost by a breath on Thursday against Argentina (3-2), but rather the pride of having made the whole futsal family proud. A family that hopes to have grown.
« We find ourselves fourth, so it’s a disappointmentagreed coach Raphaël Reynaud after the match, recalling that the Blues had acquired a taste for success and wanted to go all the way. But whatever happens, it will not erase our pride in having achieved this journey. And above all to have brought the team to the last play of the competition, here in Tashkent. Twenty-two teams were watching us today from the stands or in front of the television. We are very proud to be there, to have represented French futsal well and to have managed to store all this experience which will be useful to us for the future. »
« We know where we come from, everything we have, we earned it little by little “, insisted the coach, for whom the French team is now ahead since the plan is to prepare it for the 2026 European Championship. “There, we are reaching a milestone that we have never reached so far. This dynamic should allow all stakeholders to rely on the French team to further develop futsal. »
“The group was more sure of itself”
When he explains the reasons for such a good run, captain Kevin Ramirez highlights a group that gradually became aware of its strength. “ We had prepared well in recent years. The objective was to get out of the chickens. But we saw game after game that the team was gaining strength. We are aware of our strengths and we knew we could achieve something. We said it internally, we always believed it. We have had strong teams in the past, with perhaps a smaller squad. There, the group was more sure of itself, in its mentality, the psychological strength it exudeshe insists. But the reality is also that we lost in the semi-final on details against a triple finalist, Argentina (in 2016, 2021 and 2024)… » Among the futsal Blues like those of football, an appointment is made for the next time.
