France’s third goalkeeper at Euro 2024, Alphonse Areola would perhaps have been Hugo Lloris’ successor if he had stayed longer at PSG. Unfortunately, the Parisians pushed him out without him expecting it.
At Euro 2024, the French team can count on two goalkeepers trained at PSG: Mike Maignan and Alphonse Areola. However, both men left Paris a long time ago now. While Maignan never had his chance in the first team, Areola played 107 games with PSG before leaving the club in 2019. Now a starter at West Ham, Areola had previously played for Real Madrid and Fulham. A bumpy path that may have cost him a starting spot in the French team. Areola had been able to perform well against Germany in one of his rare starts for the French team, in the Nations League, in September 2018.
Areola thrown by PSG, he did not digest
With a prolonged adventure at PSG, the West Ham goalkeeper could have overtaken Mike Maignan and been Lloris’ successor in the French team. His transfer to Real Madrid in 2019 was the turning point in his career. A regular at PSG at the time, Areola was replaced by Keylor Navas. An unwanted transfer that was concluded two days before the end of the summer transfer window while Areola had planned to stay. This is what his wife Marrion revealed in an interview with Le Parisien. According to her, Alphonse Areola never got over his forced departure from PSG, his favorite club, while Leonardo and Thomas Tuchel had promised him that he would be kept.
« We were having dinner with friends, and “Al” got a call from his agent, Mino Raiola at the time, who said: You’re going to Real. Paris had just bought Navas. We found out 48 hours before the end of the transfer window, and that didn’t really leave him time to look for another club. […] He loves Paris with all his heart. It was his whole life. Alphonse never talked about it, I think he still hurts today. His dream was shattered in one fell swoop. He was devastated. I can still see his face… They always put obstacles in his way in Paris. When he managed to earn his place, they brought in Buffon, for whom he had real admiration, but he still had to share his season with another goalkeeper. He said to himself: when are they really going to trust me? It annoys me, because they tried to put him down. It was hard for his parents, for me. He never showed it, because he is hardened. But that phone call to tell him he was leaving, I will remember it all my life. “, she indicated in the Parisian daily. A cynical choice that PSG will not have regretted given the solidity displayed by Navas afterwards.
