Qualified, but quite nervous. It was difficult to find a smile on the faces of the players of the France Espoirs team this Tuesday on Marcel Picot’s side, despite qualifying for the Euro in the category, scheduled for June 2025 in Slovakia. And for good reason, the Bleuets, who could finish in first place in the group in the event of success, obtained their sesame thanks to their status as 2nd best second after the defeat conceded against Austria (1-2).
“The objective was qualification so we are very happy to be qualified if it is confirmed, but we are sportsmen and we want to win the matches”reacted Gérald Baticle at the microphone of The Channel L’Equipewhile the qualification had just been confirmed following a clever calculation.
It’s normal that France can play each edition of the Euro, so we had to do much better
“Something was missing to qualify in the way we wanted, with better offensive animation and more defensive solidity to contain our opponents and beat them”still regretted the successor of Thierry Henry a few moments after the final whistle. “It’s difficult to smile there. I’m a competitive person, it’s normal for me that France can play every edition of the Euro, so for me we had to do much better”joined him by Arnaud Kalimuendo, author of the score reduction in the 87th minute.
A much too late awakening for a team which has nevertheless mastered almost all areas of the game, if not the two most important, namely efficiency in both surfaces. “We have to tell the truth and raise the level, because what we did at the end was much more intense, in everything we wanted to do, we should have done that before”declared Kalimuendo lucidly.
There is a mental datum (…), we were not liberated enough
“At the start we were surprised by their intensity, it was better in the second half but we took a counter and that penalized usrewound for his part Johann Lepenant. Even with the ball we have to do better, we will have to do better on many points to arrive at the Euro with ambition.”indicated the Nantes resident, also aware of all the work that awaits the French Hopes, if they want to do better, next summer, than the quarter-finals reached in 2021 and 2023.
Baticle has time to correct the defects of Bleuets
Gérald Baticle, who has a team full of talents who are nevertheless seasoned in national or, sometimes, continental games, gave him a diagnosis that goes beyond the field: “There is a mental factor. The first half hour, we did some interesting things but we weren’t liberated enough. Even though we did everything to get out of the challenge, there was a certain weight”said the former Angers coach. A half-admission of helplessness in the face of a team which seems incapable of producing a quality performance without being undermined by the opponent.
“In the second half, we have to build our match in another way to be more effective and not have to reactBaticle regretted again. Opposite us we had a team which caused us a lot of problems, which was valiant, liberated, but we did not know how to contain them and not hit them enough.”. The French team is qualified, certainly, but far from reassured.
