The Blues had an almost perfect evening yesterday in Nice, during their victory against Gibraltar (14-0). However, it is difficult to draw lessons for the future.
There is satisfaction, first. That of duty accomplished, which allowed the French team to secure top seed status for the draw for the next Euro, thanks to its victory against Gibraltar (14-0), Saturday November 18 in Nice . There is, also, the desire not to minimize what the Blues have achieved, as Didier Deschamps explains after this historic victory: “You have to know how to appreciate, savor, because we have a little too much tendency to trivialize.”
There is also this broken record – the largest victory in the history of the Blues – that the French players aimed for during the match, at half-time, when they were already leading by seven goals. “We aimed to beat this record. The coach let us know that there was something to look for, that’s why we had this seriousness throughout the match. We wanted even more, we wanted to stay in history and we did it collectively, there is nothing more beautiful“, welcomed Kylian Mbappé at the microphone of TF1 after the match.
The memories of this evening at the Allianz Riviera will remain in the annals of French football and in the heads of the 32,758 spectators present in the stands of the Nice stadium. The children, numerous in the aisles occupied by a mainly family audience, will keep in their memory for a long time the images of the 14 French goals, Kylian Mbappé’s hat-trick and his 40-meter lob, Olivier Giroud’s acrobatic return or the “ola ” which capsized the stands in the second period.
The seriousness of the Blues praised by the coach
The dimension of this victory can also be measured by the details. After the match, the Gibraltar coach and his players, affected by the defeat, refused to speak to the press, risking sanctions from UEFA for not having respected their media obligations. The Gibraltarian press officer therefore left the place in the auditorium of the Allianz Riviera to Dider Deschamps, who knows that, despite the scale of this success, “we are not going to build on this match”.
This is the paradox of the biggest victory in the history of the selection: on a 14-0 evening, it is difficult to form certainties. “A word I never use”underlines Didier Deschamps, who prefers his “beliefs”. Those of the “quality” of its workforce and “his state of mind“.”Sometimes it’s difficult against an opponent like that to get straight into it, but we showed from the start of the match that we are professional and that we give our best, regardless of the opponent“, recalled Kingsley Coman on TF1.
From this victory, we must therefore especially remember the serious tricolor. That of a team which continued to attack when the match was already won and which showed a different face than that displayed against Gibraltar in the first leg (3-0). A match won without shining, at the end of a very long season. While for Saturday’s, “we take a lot of pleasure from the bench because we see the players who also enjoy it by doing things with a lot of application“, remembers Didier Deschamps above all.
Avenues to study
On the player side, it is difficult to evaluate those who scored points, due to the low level of the opponent, who is only ahead of the Bahamas and Liechtenstein in the Fifa rankings (198th out of 200). While the coach announced in recent days that all matches will now be used to build the list for the Euro which will be revealed in May, the Jonathan Clauss-Kingsley Coman pair once again worked well on the right side. The Marseille full-back, whistled during the announcement of the team compositions, scored his first goal in Blue, when Kingsley Coman scored a double.
“They have the ability to be dangerous offensively.”, underlines Didier Deschamps, who looks favorably on this emerging right side while the Blues’ play has often leaned to the left in recent months. “But there was not adversity of a very high international level.”, nuance the coach. To be reviewed, therefore, against a better selection. Like Marcus Thuram at the forefront, he who also scored a goal and showed himself to his advantage, while the debate on the starting center forward rages.
In front of his audience, who cheered him on, Jean-Clair Todibo calmly managed the few interventions he had to make. Concerning Warren Zaire-Emery, Didier Deschamps “can’t judge on fifteen minutes”. The 17-year-old Parisian scored before leaving with an injury. “It’s not a fracture.”reassures Deschamps, who already specifies “that we will have the opportunity to see him again”. Because that’s also what we should remember from this match in Nice against Gibraltar: the debut in the French team of a little prodigy heralded as a very big future.