Les Bleues face Germany in the semi-finals on Wednesday. The opportunity to come out on top of a long slump on the field, in the locker room and beyond…
We’ll call it a growing pain. Saturday, their success (1-0 after extra time against the Dutch), sent the Blues to the semi-finals of the Euro, this Wednesday at 9 p.m., against the German selection in Milton Keynes, England. A few minutes after this victory, the president of the French Football Federation (FFF), Noël Le Graët, rushed in front of the microphones to shoot the barbed wire: “The players and Corinne [Diacre, la sélectionneuse, ndlr] are very motivated and well together. It proves that women’s football is not going too badly! The keyword is «ensemble». Three years of heartbreak, twisted blows, thunderous dismissals and settling of scores through the press or otherwise, with captain Wendie Renard who will take Deacon between four eyes two days before the quarter against the Netherlands to demand – and get – the reinstatement of his club partner Griedge Mbock, for sure, it plays «ensemble». Women’s football is in the limelight and we should be happy about it. We can no longer talk about anything.
Injustice
Growth crisis still: the Blues will have for this semi-final two days of rest less than the Germans and their steel defense (0 goals conceded in four games, but three Austrian posts in the quarter). It’s an injustice that we no longer see in men (with a margin of one day at this stage of the competition). “Inevitably, it will change something but we don’t have time to thinkrelativizes the attacker Kadidiatou Diani. We know that, in a competition, there is always a disadvantaged team. Today it falls on us. We’re not going to take that as an excuse. We’re gonna give everything.”
Justice always, with a host of ghosts resuscitated for a short week and information from the Parisian : midfielder Aminata Diallo, implicated by Kheira Hamraoui in the violent attack with the iron bar of which the latter was the victim in November, was not retained by Paris-SG. However, Diallo is very close to Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Grace Geyoro or even Diani, who dispute or have disputed (Katoto is injured for eight months) this English European championship, some of them having even had the assurance that Diallo would be extended before going to have fun on the English lawns.
The Parisian management mentioned “sporting reasons”, but this argument smacks of a diplomatic screen, especially since the investigation into the Hamraoui affair has been completed since mid-May. Suffice to say that this semi-final is a great breakaway, a parenthesis exclusively devoted to the only thing worthwhile – the game –, but which is called to close in a few days on the eternal fight between Deacon and the Lyon internationals (Sarah Bouhaddi , Eugénie Le Sommer, Amandine Henry, not selected for the Euro) and these social gatherings where we meet without speaking to each other – not even a hello, we have witnessed it.
“We work for emotions like that”
So you have to take advantage. On a rare occasion, since the Bleues have only dismissed one team to date bankable(and again, since the reigning European champions Dutch were ravaged by injuries and the Covid). From a team with no real weakness, to Juventus goalkeeper Pauline Peyraud-Magnin, a luxury in a Euro where most selections are full of holes. And the dazzling talent of her side players, Delphine Cascarino on the left and Diani on the right, the influence of the latter on the matches having led her to claim Monday from Deacon by way of press conference the conservation of her position as winger, the coach may be tempted to refocus her – if Renard makes the girlfriends play, Diani will not be shy either. When the players pass in front of the microphones, it is precisely this full awareness of an opportunity to be seized that strikes, the famous glass ceiling erased against the Dutch – not a quarter-final won for ten years and the 2012 Games -, therefore operating as a metaphorical liberation, an impetus.
“What we have done is enormousanalyzed the midfielder Charlotte Bilbault. Everyone was waiting for us in this Euro. In the locker room, we were very, very happy. We work for emotions like that, we also want to transmit them to the people who work for us, to the supporters, to everyone. Personally, I’m hungry and I think it showed on the pitch against the Netherlands. I am 32 years old, I am at the end of my career, I want to take advantage of the present moment.
“We used to play together for a few years, we all know each other detailed Diani. We each know the character of the others. The most important thing was this serenity and this mutual support during the matches, even if it was not always easy. It is important to have a teammate to tell us the words that will reassure us, help us when we are a little less well.A very old story that takes root in the depths of time and re-establishes itself everywhere, all the time: if defeat is a revealer, victory is cement. This shows the importance of what is going to happen in Milton Keynes this Wednesday.