Axel Disasi looks back on the final: “When I see Kolo Muani armed, I have the reflex to run to celebrate”

Axel, if you had to summarize your evening of December 18, 2022, of this legendary final, in one word?

Axel Disasi: Crazy! That’s the word.

What is the strongest memory from your final?
A.D : I think it’s the equalizer, 2-2 (Kylian Mbappé, 81st). It was crazy. It arrives shortly after the 2-1 (Kylian Mbappé, 80th, from penalty). We are barely recovering from this first goal when the second comes immediately after. I see the explosion from the sidelines again… We all cross the field. I also think about the stadium. When we arrived, from the outside, it was all golden. That impressed me. But if I really have to remember one moment, it’s this equalizer.

Do you see that bench explosion again?
AD: Next to me, I think there is William (Cross)Mattéo (Guendouzi)Adri’ (Adrien Rabiot). It happened naturally. We go for it. At the corner post, I just know we’re all jumping, we’re all crashing into each other. It was something strong.

Is this the strongest adrenaline shot of your career?
AD: I don’t know. There were others, but I was more of an actor, like on a goal that I scored. But there, as a replacement, yes. You experience emotions differently. When you’re on the pitch, you’re a little more focused. On the bench, you are a little more of a spectator. And you live it.

Before this crazy 2-2, what were you marked by in this final?

AD: I remember seeing my jersey in the locker room before the match. With writing “World Cup Final, Argentina-France”with the date. It made me really happy. Then I would say halftime (Argentina then leads 2-0). It was strong. Kylian (Mbappe) Speak up, Steve (Manda) Also. They remind us that what this moment represents, a final, that we must realize how lucky we are to be there, that it doesn’t happen every day… Me, I’m here in telling me: “I’m in a World Cup final and it can’t happen like that, it’s impossible!” That the guys were talking, it struck me because even I, who am a bit reserved by nature, at a moment like that, I started to encourage. I saw myself again with my role as captain when I was in Monaco (2020-2023). Because during my first steps in the French team (Editor’s note: He was called up for the first time in the Blues in mid-November 2022, to leave for Qatar)this role, I completely put it aside because you have to make your place. But at that moment, that “encouragement” side came back.

You then decide to become an actor in your final…

AD: Yes, yes. But I think it coincides with Randal’s entrance (Editor’s note: Kolo Muani, 41st minute. The striker enters at the same time as Marcus Thuram to replace Ousmane Dembélé and Olivier Giroud). Because when he came in, he brought something. We, on the bench, felt it. He brought energy, fighting for all the balls. Like the penalty he gets (80th, fault of Nicolas Otamendi). He was a customer. So, at halftime, maybe we all must have felt that energy that he brought.

We arrive at overtime: 2-3, then 3-3 and this new penalty from Mbappé. We are in stoppage time, the penalties are arriving and Didier Deschamps decides to bring you in instead of Jules Kounde. What is happening?

AD: It happened so strangely. I didn’t even warm up. There was no one sitting on the bench anymore. As in the neighborhood, we were all standing, the Argentinians were too. So I’m experiencing the match and I’m told: “Axel, you’re coming back.” I was so into the action that I didn’t even try to say to myself: “Fuck, I’m going to play!” I took off my pinafore and my sweater, and I went straight there. It happened very quickly. Even my family in the stand was surprised. It wasn’t like it was a prepared change. You don’t have time to think about your emotion. There are 3-3, you are in the World Cup final and you can’t ask yourself this or that question, it’s dead! You can’t. Especially considering how intense the end of overtime was! It was blow for blow!

AD: I am a right back. It’s Ibou (Ibrahima Konaté) who gets the ball after a duel and puts a kind of ball into a bell… I don’t even know if he does it on purpose. And when the ball bounces, I’m marking with the Argentinian winger (Lautaro Martinez). When I see that Randal is arming, I have a reflex: I start running to celebrate. I’m already moving forward to have this explosion of joy. I saw myself again at 2-2, when we ran onto the pitch. Because there, if there is a goal, it’s over. He hits and the other (Emiliano Martinez) puts his foot. I’m getting back to marking. A crazy emotional elevator. In addition, in the process, there is a counterattack for Argentina and they score a header (Lautaro Martinez misses and can’t find the target)…

You are not in the first five designated shooters: how do you experience this always somewhat vague moment which precedes a penalty shootout, and even more so in a World Cup final?

AD: I don’t know if it’s before extra time or before the penalty shootout: but Randal (First Colony)before seeing each other at the World Cup, I knew him a little because we had friends in common. Even if afterwards, we got really close as a French team. And we have roughly the same journey. We have a somewhat strong discussion in the sense that we say to ourselves: ‘where we come from… There, we can turn everything around!’ I see him in his finale, and I try to make him realize the importance he exuded, with his instilled energy. And his successful shot on goal (Kolo Muani is the fourth French shooter. The final ends if he misses his attempt) sums it up perfectly. Closed face, a firecracker, and he puts it on.

When Gonzalo Montiel converts his shot on goal and sends Argentina to the roof of the world, what emotion rises within you?

AD: In films, when there is a sound of gunfire, you have the sound that resonates, then nothing, just silence. Well in my head, it was like that. I know I just lost a final, but I think the moment I really realize it comes a few months later. That’s when you understand where you were. And I told myself that, if we had won, it would have been nonsense! It would have been for life. It’s this question in my head: “Imagine? Imagine if the story would have been different?” There is also something that still annoys me today: when people tell me “You are vice-world champion”. Vice hurts. Very bad. But that’s life, that’s how it is. Sometimes, there are people who will tell me as if it were a list of achievements. But it’s not really a track record, because there is this “vice”. And this vice is disturbing, all the same.