What face will this French team have on Thursday against Austria? Two months before their first match in the World Cup, the Blues begin the last rally having to face a hecatomb of injured people. If France is already out of the race in the League of Nations, the two upcoming matches (against Denmark on September 25) will be decisive to get to Doha with the status of reigning world champion.
Coach Didier Deschamps faces an unprecedented cascade of injuries for his comeback. Each line is deprived of at least one manager: Hugo Lloris in goal, Presnel Kimpembe and Lucas Hernandez in defense, Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kanté in the middle and Karim Benzema in attack. In summary, the “eleven” of the injured would look at least as good as that of the able players. “It’s the last meeting before a big competition and the situation is special“, remarked Deschamps during the announcement of his last selection before that of the World Cup, last Thursday.
Place for youth
Since then, other glitches have been added to the list and “DD” finds itself with a very poorly capped group, where only six players out of 23 have more than twelve selections. The midfielder is particularly inexperienced: none of the six players called up to this position during the last Euro, fifteen months ago, is at Clairefontaine this week. “Youth, yes, there are, but there is also experience: (Eduardo) Camavinga is European champion, Aurélien (Tchouaméni) plays for Real (Madrid). Names, there are all the same“, evacuates the Monegasque Youssouf Fofana, one of the five novices of the group.
“As far as the France team is concerned, okay, we have little experience, but in terms of competition and football matches, I think we are able to get by.” Escorted by a heavy climate in recent weeks (Pogba affair, ministerial audit at the Federation, negotiations on their image rights …), the Blues would do well to raise the bar on the ground, because their latest results leave The rally in June, which ended with two defeats and two draws, including the first leg in Austria (1-1), cast doubt on the level of the world champions and the ability of their coach to adapting tactically to the many absences “DD” initially wanted to evolve in a scheme with three central defenders but had resigned himself, in June, to renewing a 4-4-2 system, closer to that of the Russian World Cup.
Risk of relegation to the League of Nations
In accounting terms, the Blues are already out of the League of Nations, of which they are the title holders. Worse, two new poor performances against Austria, then Sunday in Denmark, would condemn them to an unworthy relegation to the second division (League B) in this event launched in 2018 to replace the friendly matches. The reception of David Alaba’s teammates therefore offers the Habs an opportunity to redeem themselves, but also to score valuable points for the World Cup.
Mike Maignan, propelled goalkeeper N.1 with the absence of Lloris, must thus become the most used goalkeeper this year in selection. Revelation of last season, Tchouaméni can impose himself even more in the hierarchy in the middle, where Camavinga will want to scratch minutes, almost two years after his third and last selection. Ferland Mendy and Ousmane Dembélé, other returnees after more than a year of absence, also have a place to win for Doha, like Olivier Giroud, who seeks to prove to Deschamps that he can offer a peaceful and effective alternative to Benzema, alongside Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé.
For novices Fofana, Benoît Badiashile, Randal Kolo Muani, Adrien Truffert, and to a lesser extent goalkeeper Alban Lafont, getting the first minutes in the two-star jersey would already be a success.