This team has a genius for the game, did not imagine themselves in the final after the first catastrophic minutes in the tournament and retains a faith in themselves which inhabits them at every turn. Yes, Kylian Mbappé’s France returns in the last week, four years after the Russian coronation, this Sunday, December 18 (4 p.m.) against Argentina; the decor has not changed, like the impatience that precedes and the vertigo that is coming.
This time it comes up against the Albiceleste, who did not lose a third of their list to start but their first match against Saudi Arabia (2-1), and advance carried by the dream of their best player , the greatest of all time, Leo Messi.
He tries one last time to gain access to the eternity that the whole world has granted him for a long time, relieved of falling into oblivion if he fails again. The planet just wants validation, composting its merger in the World Cup trophy, and will endorse the cause of the sevenfold Golden Ball at the Lusail stadium as in mondovision in front of its screens.
VIDEO. “It would be good for Messi, but we also want to win the Cup”, recalls Ousmane Dembélé
It’s a quest equally divided between two selections who want to change tables, feast in a three-star, a celestial fight. After having withstood everything, injuries as well as the virus, England and Morocco, two battles at a spinning tempo, the Blues still have to climb a step or not move too much, we don’t really know.
Basically, they’ve been dancing on top of the world for four years and they’ve just told us for a month that they’ve never really come down.
It is their daily environment, this bad luck stuck to the crampons until the last days, which reminded us of their humanity. For the rest and like four years ago, they go through their footballing life in an irrational way, remain upright despite the rain of blows, leave again when their opponent thinks they are cut off from their legs and observe Harry Kane aiming for the skylight of the sky rather than that by Hugo Lloris.
They bump into selections supported by supporters and the fervor of a world, Arab one day, pro-Messi this Sunday afternoon. This is how they progress, on a night when Jordan Veretout can become world champion and Leo Messi never. Go figure.
A piece of sunshine in our hearts
The Blues of Didier Deschamps are recovering from everything and knowing them a little better now, they can only regroup behind these unanimously opposing winds. If Karim Benzema or another wants to add a little layer around 2 p.m. this Sunday a few meters from the final, the Blues are no longer close to that.
They see their destiny in this way, entering, alone against all but together, in the legend. They are men who want to plant a piece of sunshine in our hearts and no one can escape the proposal considering the temperatures. Here the fever, the Blues talk to the French.
So nothing more can happen to them, the day when Argentina will come unleashed, lifted by the fury and the favors of the forecasts, favorite status in the shorts. They can just continue to unfold their program, score by Mbappé or Olivier Giroud and wait for others to take care of it, Aurélien Tchouaméni or Théo Hernandez, the afternoons of marking in the pants of the attackers.
Or wait for news from the bench since we now know that Marcus Thuram and Randal Kolo Muani can change the face of a World Cup semi-final. With the Blues, when nothing goes as planned, it’s a good sign. Provided that we keep telling them until kick-off that the earth awaits the coronation of Leo Messi, this should finish convincing them. Argentina hopes, France struggles.
VIDEO. Who is “the surprise striker of the Blues” Randal Kolo Muani?
La Pulga may not know it, but it is not for nothing in the first star won by the small nucleus already present in Moscow on July 15, 2018. It was after this France-Argentina in the round of 16 that the conviction of a title had arisen, lodged between the strike of Benjamin Pavard and the double of Mbappé.
The Argentinian has done a lot for French football for four years and now is absolutely not the time to thank him by rolling out the red carpet for him. Glory days, it’s sad, can’t be shared.