Two years ago, the France team experienced a particularly complicated match against Argentina, in the World Cup final. A defeat remembered by Raphaël Varane, who spoke of a traumatic event during the competition.
A page of the France team recently turned, after the announcement of Antoine Griezmann, who wished to retire internationally. Last year, it was Raphaël Varane who took everyone by surprise, by announcing his retirement after ten years of good and loyal service, at only 29 years old. “We brought the Cup home!! I will never forget it. I still feel every emotion I felt that day, July 15, 2018. It was one of the greatest and most memorable moments of my life.”, he wrote on social networks, in his farewell message. A victory which deeply marked him, and which he mentioned again, in the columns of L’Equipe, in a long interview published this Tuesday October 15, 2024.
“2018, yes, of course, there was osmosis, with values, people from different worlds, religions and culturesbut together something happened“, he confided. Then added: “But it wasn’t easy. Just before the World Cup, there were a few meetings with the coach and it was hot. But I liked the moments when it was difficult, the moments when we see on the pitch who is going to ask for the ball at their feet and for whom the ball is going to burn“.
Raphaël Varane without filter on the 2022 World Cup
Four years later, France experienced a nightmare in the World Cup final against Argentina, a lost match which left them particularly traumatized. At the time, during the semi-final against Morocco, Didier Deschamps had to do without two of his players, Adrien Rabiot and Dayot Upamecano, due to a viral syndrome. The coach had mentioned “the temperatures which have dropped” in Qatar and “air conditioning”. Raphaël Varane revealed that he too had been affected. “Towards the end of the competition, when I missed the start, I’m getting sick with this powerful virus. We’ll never know what it is. After the semi-final it got worse” he said.
Then added: “Three days before a World Cup final, I was on my knees, I was feeling exhausted, and the day before, I was still amorphous and feverish. But in my head I was like, ‘I’m not going to miss a World Cup final because I have a cold.’ I gave everything, but I didn’t have the strength before the match to motivate the troops, I didn’t have the strength at halftime to push everyone“. Unfiltered confidences from Raphaël Varane who felt that the team was “completely beside [ses] push-ups for eighty minutes“. The explanation of a failure?
France
