“an inappropriate, even disrespectful, exit”, tackles the coach of the Blues after the comments of Hubert Fournier on the management of penalties

The coach who is the main actor in the work on penalties? Didier Deschamps had little taste for the words of National Technical Director Hubert Fournier, dating from last February, and showed it this Thursday at a press conference.

Didier Deschamps revealed, Thursday March 14, the list of 23 Blues selected for the preparation matches against Germany and Chile (March 23 and 26). The coach of the French team did not fail to react to an exit from Hubert Fournier, the national technical director in charge of the development of sports practice for all of footballwho, faced with the lack of success of all the French teams in the penalty shootout exercise, proposed a plan to work on them, on RMC Sport, on February 9.

“My position is not that I consider that it cannot be worked on. I am convinced and my past as a player gives me information: it is impossible to recreate the same situation on a psychological and athletic level in a training session as in a match with overtime. It’s very good that there are studies being done on this, on the other hand, what bothers me and which I find inappropriate, even disrespectful, is the media outing of the DTN”reacted Didier Deschamps, before adding and insisting: “We are preparing for the penalty shootouts. (…) The women worked and unfortunately, that’s not why it led to success. It can be worked on, but now, do training only on that…”

An elimination at Euro 2020 against Switzerland (3-3, 4-5 tab), a defeat in the World Cup final against Argentina in 2022 for men (3-3, 2-4 tab), an elimination in the quarter-final of the World Cup against Australia (0-0, 6-7 tab) for the women… The final straw was the defeat of the U17s in the World Cup final in Germany in December 2023 (2-2, 3-4 tabs). It was too much for Hubert Fournier, who revealed that the French Football Federation was going to implement a global strategy on penalties from March.

For the former OL coach, the main actor in this plan of attack is the coach: “He is the one in charge and everything starts from him. (…) He will have to offer them a scenario while trying as much as possible to contextualize the penalty shootout. Then, he will have to offer them varied exercises which will allow them to create personal confidence among the shooters. It will also be necessary to prepare, in the same way as that for the match, a real strategy linked to the specificity of shooting on goal.”

Thierry Henry agrees with Didier Deschamps

In short, better prepare for possible overtime and penalties, and stop considering them as “a lottery“.”I was able to use the word lottery… It’s a balance of power between the shooter and the goalkeeper”, contextualizes Didier Deschamps this March 14. “Since I took office, there have been 18 matches potentially affected by penalties out of 149, that represents 15%… We only missed two… There are things that we cannot control.”supports the coach.

Questioned after Didier Deschamps’ conference on the same subject, Thierry Henry, coach of the Espoirs, supported his former teammate: “There are things you can’t control. The moment, what’s happening in your body, in your head. If you haven’t taken a shot on goal at that level, you can’t know.”