The Blues have arrived in Milan since on Saturday, a thick fog, in an icy atmosphere, enveloped the city. It looks like the local weather forecaster has been watching the French team’s latest matches. Those of the year 2024 in any case, which ends this Sunday, November 17 with an Italy-France match at San Siro as part of the last outing of the League of Nations in the group stage, before the quarter-finals in March (20 and 23) for which it is already qualified.
This prestigious poster will erase nothing, neither this Euro stingy in emotions nor the last meeting, a France-Israel in the bunker of the Stade de France, a “worst of” of 2024 which will have compiled all the shortcomings of Didier Deschamps’ men, from the impossibility of creating play to total inefficiency, with an average of 1.38 goals per match including seven against Luxembourg (3-0) and Israel (1-4), but zero against Germany, the Portugal and one against Spain.
A victory and/or attractive content will not make fans want to get passionate about the tricolors again while the audiences show their distrust, but it is the same with football as with life: it is always the last impression who counts. In this annus horribilis with these four 0-0s despite a semi-final of the European Championship, the vice-world champions, who need a success by two goals to finish at the top of the group, offered two narrow escapes, both times against Belgium in the same League of Nations.
The good dynamics of the Squadra Azzurra
Certainly, it seems that the Red Devils have arrived at a stage where everyone beats them, but in Lyon as in Brussels, the tricolors have followed their common thread, connected to the internal ferment or collective resistance. A little of both would do good in a volcanic and sold-out San Siro, come to salute Italy’s current first place in this group and at the same time its rebirth after a failed Euro even more widely than the French team (elimination in the round of 16 against Switzerland).
Through the game, the return of a prodigal player, Sandro Tonali masterfully at the Parc on September 6 (1-3) after ten months of suspension, and a few simple ideas like the three-way defense, the Nazionale has reconnected with confidence and goals, with three more than the Blues in the five matches played so far. She wants to complete her work by defeating France a second time, a new victory which would mark her return to the forefront and place her among the favorites of the competition. Can Mike Maignan’s partners be partly inspired by this thinning of the Squadra Azzurra?
Tactically, Didier Deschamps has not found any good ideas this year, the last one with Warren Zaire-Emery in number 10 proving particularly ineffective. There is no new edge for the moment, Michael Olise getting bogged down in his first selections which resemble a burden, an evil that many of his predecessors experienced.
Bradley Barcola was that this summer in Germany, but first settled into the Ligue 1 setting before perhaps one day shaking up the international scene, in the Champions League or in the selection. Antoine Griezmann will not return and Kylian Mbappé not before March, at best. We will have to find something or someone to carry the light and bring the Blues out of the Milanese mist. It would be about really wanting to see them again in 2025.
