Less than a week after the chaos of the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid, the Stade de France has once again become the home of the Blues. France welcome Denmark on Friday June 3 for the start of their League of Nations campaign. If this competition does not have the flavor of a World Cup or a Euro, this match between France and Denmark is still important in many respects.
The Blues will play in a Stade de France tomorrow against Denmark
There are 8000 tickets left for the game against Croatia on June 13 https://t.co/eWsGu0Mmom pic.twitter.com/cS71EvTOom
– French team (@equipedefrance) June 2, 2022
First of all because the Blues, title holders of this League of Nations which they won last October against Spain, are keen to do well in this competition. “President [Noël Le Graët, président de la FFF] told us: he wants us to go get this trophy, it’s a goal“, explained Guy Stéphan, interim evening coach in the absence of coach Didier Deschamps, bereaved by the death of his father.
“We want to give ourselves every chance to go as far as possible in this competition.“, confirmed Hugo Lloris Thursday, during the press conference before the match. That’s it for now, but there will be lessons to be learned. Before starting the World Cup in Qatar at the end of the year (November 21-December 18), the Blues have only six games left to play, including tonight’s game against Denmark, an opponent they will meet again in November, in the group stage of the World Cup.
Didier Deschamps said it during the friendly matches against Côte d’Ivoire (2-1) and South Africa (5-0) in March, and Guy Stéphan recalled it on Thursday: “What is important is that after this gathering, there will only be one. (…) The World Cup, we are already thinking about itIn other words, all the matches to come will make it possible to best prepare for the Qatari World Cup and to determine the identity of the players who will participate in the competition.
And to prepare for it, what better than to face your future opponent in the group stage? The France team will have a taste, on Friday, of what to expect on November 26th. A second round is set for September 25, away, for the return match of this League of Nations. What better way to know your opponent before the long-awaited deadline?
“Obviously, but it also allows the adversary to know us better“, moderated Guy Stéphan Thursday at Franceinfo: sport, for whom Denmark is an adversary “underside“. The selection of the miraculous Christian Eriksen, semi-finalist of the last Euro, no longer has the same dimension as that of the 2018 World Cup, which the Blues had found in a soporific draw (0-0), already in phase of groups.
This is a great opportunity, therefore, to gauge each other while taking a psychological advantage before the next two games between the two teams. This entry into the running in the League of Nations and, more generally, this gathering in June will make it possible to continue working on the system of three defenders favored by Deschamps since Euro 2021. But also to assess the state of form of the executives that are Raphaël Varane, N’Golo Kanté or Antoine Griezmann, less prominent with their respective clubs.
If Guy Stéphan assured that “rotations“would take place with the sequence of the following three matches, against Croatia and Austria, the assistant of Deschamps should all the same align what looks like a starting eleven on Friday. Against Denmark, it is already a question of sort of a World Cup match.