The French have drawn on their reserves to reach the final of the Soccer World Cup against the Argentines, a summit which they approach tired, with one day less of rest and the sword of Damocles of a disease with mysterious outlines in their ranks.
This is the price of success: Didier Deschamps keeps his standard team and has very little run, with the exception of the last group match against Tunisia, lost 1-0 with the substitutes. Its incumbents stuck out their tongues on Wednesday, in the field against often sharper Moroccans and then in front of the media.
“We tried so hard, we suffered so much, that we come out of a match like this empty,” said captain Hugo Lloris after his 99 minutes on the al-Bayt meadow. , the stage of the semi-final, made dizzying by the whistles and the fervor of the Moroccan public.
Aurélien Tchouaméni, 22, has youth for him, but that does not prevent him from being on the kneecaps. “After the match, we were knocked out, frankly … We ran a lot, the competition is long, it’s been a lot of matches that we chained with a lot of intensity,” said the Real Madrid midfielder.
The player trained in Bordeaux has accumulated 552 minutes in six games, all started as a starter, a singularity among the 24 Blues. Including added time, he played around 100 minutes against Denmark and Tunisia in the group stage, against England in the quarters and against Morocco in the semis.
24 hours less rest
“The England-Morocco sequence hurt us physically, but with the staff we have, we will recover well,” said Tchouaméni.
Thursday, behind closed doors, the holders of the day before were content to run or pedal, in addition to receiving treatment from physiotherapists. The others carried out a “more intensive session (warm-up, toro, reduced game 5 against 5 with a joker player)”, according to the French Football Federation.
The Blues leave with a major handicap against Argentina on Sunday in Lusail. They benefit from one less day of rest compared to Lionel Messi’s teammates, who qualified on Tuesday.
The apparent advantage for the Argentines must however be nuanced.
On the one hand, the executives of the French team have all more or less rested against Tunisia, with the exception of Tchouaméni (holder) and the usual holders who entered in the second half (Rabiot, Mbappé, Griezmann, Dembélé) . On the other hand, the Blues avoided a grueling extra time for the legs and a nerve-wracking penalty shoot-out: the Albiceleste had to go through that in the quarter-finals against the Netherlands.
Several weakened players
France has been affected for several days by an illness which has already put three leading players on the back.
Central defender Dayot Upamecano is the first to have felt a “cold snap”, according to the staff, after the quarter-final against the English, and he remained on the bench on Wednesday. Adrien Rabiot seems affected by the same ills and the middle watched the half from the hotel, package.
On Thursday, the two players returned to training. Rabiot ran with physical trainer Cyril Moine. Upamecano took part in a more advanced session (games, reduced opposition) alongside the substitutes of the day before.
Kingsley Coman, victim of a “little viral syndrome” according to the FFF, stayed at the hotel. “His condition does not inspire particular concern about Sunday’s final,” she said.
At a press conference, the coach put forward several possible explanations on Wednesday. The cold snap, first, because “temperatures have rather dropped” recently in Qatar, a country where there is also always “air conditioning on full”. And the possibility of a virus, then.
“Anything viral is transmissible. We took precautions so that there was no contact, with Dayot, and for Adrien the same, ”he said.
The COVID-19 hypothesis has been ruled out, even if the epidemic is very present in Doha, especially among the journalists who came to follow the competition. FIFA no longer requires teams to carry out drug tests.
This did not prevent the Blues from celebrating their qualification, in the locker room, in the company of Emmanuel Macron, as in the hotel, with loud cries and hugs galore.