Two days before the Argentina-France clash, and on the eve of the Croatia-Morocco small final, the Blues are recovering with the hope of attaching a third star to their jersey.
Air conditioning, the other opponent of the French team
Adrien Rabiot, Dayot Upamecano and Kingsley Coman did not participate in the semi-final on Wednesday, sick or feeling “febrility”. The tricolor management divulges few details but ensures that precautions are taken to avoid any contamination before the final. A good sign: Rabiot and Upamecano were back in training on Thursday. Coman, he remained at rest. So, big “cold snap” or small “virus”, what are the players of the France team suffering from? Our lighting.
The exhausted Blues recover
Players impervious to air conditioning hits still face a slack hit. “We tried so hard, we suffered so much that we come out of a match like this empty”, did not hide captain Hugo Lloris after his 99 minutes spent under the deafening whistles of the fervor of the Moroccan public on Wednesday. With his youth, but without being a superman, Aurélien Tchouaméni, 22, was also 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 chain with a lot of intensity”. In order not to exhaust the players, Thursday’s training was “based on recovery”the staff tweeted.
Messi Mbappé: duel of scorers in the final
The battle for the World Cup top scorer trophy is also being played out on Sunday. Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, the two superstars of Paris Saint Germain, lead the scoring charts for this World Cup with 5 goals each. Winning this ranking and winning the World Cup are two major arguments for the awarding of the Ballon d’Or 2022-2023, which the 35-year-old Argentinian can hope to win for the eighth time while his younger brother French, 23, runs behind a first trophy for best player in the world. But if the two Parisian stars are muzzled in the final, their lieutenants could take advantage of it. Olivier Giroud and Julian Alvarez, each with 4 goals on the clock, are in ambush.
Didier Deschamps, quiet France
The coach will play Sunday, December 18 his second World Cup final in a row. At the head of the Blues for ten years, this long-term specialist has been able to build and rely on the unconditional support of his players. If the Blues overthrow Argentina’s Albiceleste on Sunday at Lusaï, Didier Deschamps will become the first coach to win two World Cups since Italian Vittorio Pozzo in otherwise troubled times – with refereeing complacency and the shadow of Benito Mussolini hanging over the successes from then of the Squadra Azzura. The echoes of the Al Messila hotel, where the Blues are immersed in a luxury as delirious as the country which has sheltered them for a month, tell a coach who listens. And even very, very attentive. Our profile of the French coach.
Being gay in Qatar: “It’s hard to love a country that doesn’t even recognize your existence”
In a state that criminalizes same-sex sexual relations, LGBT people are invisible. Of them of them agreed to tell Freed their daily. From the outset, when asked to introduce himself, Tamim (1) hesitates. “It’s complicated to talk about me, because I feel like I’m always torn between two personalities. On the one hand, there is the person I am at home, an ordinary Qatari. And the one I am in spaces where I have more freedom like at university, where I can say that I am a homosexual. In Qatar, it’s quite normal for gays to have a double life. Read our article.
But apart from that, “we must not politicize sport”
In mid-November, as denunciations of human rights abuses in Qatar grew, Emmanuel Macron brushed aside the controversy with a sally: “sport should not be politicized”. And yet… Came to congratulate the Blues in the locker room, after their victory against Morocco on Wednesday, the Head of State was not alone, but accompanied by a “soldier who almost died in the Sahel”said the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castera. “A very strong symbol”, she greeted at the microphone of RTL. Criticized for his trip to Qatar, and for having welcomed the “good” organization of the World Cup by the emirate, the president split a lapidary “I fully assume” upon his arrival at the European Council in Brussels. Reread our article.
Macron wants to take the injured Blues, including Benzema, to Doha for the final
We remember the photo of a president in the bottom of his shirt, fists in the air, celebrating the French victory in 2018 in Russia, wanting to be the first supporter of France. Here he is this time repainted as a good Samaritan, taking under his wing, or rather in his Falcon, the unfortunate team members deprived of the World Cup for injury. The info comes from Amélie Oudéa-Casterala Minister of Sports, who assures that Emmanuel Macron intends to offer the trip to the injured Blues, including Karim Benzema, Ngolo Kanté, Mike Maignan, Christopher Nkunku or Presnel Kimpembe. On the other hand, according to Europe 1, Michel Platini refused the presidential invitation. Acquitted in July in his “FIFAgate” trial for corruption, the former leader of the Blues does not wish to meet FIFA members.
Blue night, brown plague
Freed made its headlines, as the events remind us badly of the threat of far-right groups. She promised barbarian hordes in the streets, she had not specified that it would be her troops who would crack down. According to our information, the radicals of the violent Parisian extreme right had organized a “mob” (Anglicism designating a violent crowd) to attack Moroccan supporters on the sidelines of the match between France and Morocco on Wednesday evening, in the semi-finals of the World Cup and which resulted in a victory for the Blues. A group of 40 individuals “affiliated with the ultra-right” were arrested by the police before they arrived on the avenue des Champs-Elysées, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. Its members wanted “clearly unraveling”. A total of 110 people were taken into custody in the capital during the evening. Read our article.
After the death of a 14-year-old on the evening of France-Morocco, a popular district of Montpellier in mourning
In the middle of the celebrations, Wednesday evening, the Paillade district in Montpellier experienced a tragedy: a 14-year-old teenager, Aymen, died hit by a car. The vehicle was found near the scene of the accident, but the driver is still wanted. The Montpellier prosecutor’s office has opened a “investigation of the chief of aggravated fatal blows in this case with weapon (the vehicle)”, entrusted to the departmental security. Since then, the popular district in the north of the city of Hérault has been in mourning. The story of our correspondent on site.
picture of the day
The romance continues between the Blues and the Italian singer Gala. On his Instagram account, the artist with more than 6 million records sold worldwide shared a video of the French team locker room, a few minutes after the final whistle Wednesday night against Morocco. We see Emmanuel Macron clapping his hands and congratulating the French players one after the other. A quick tour of the locker room as the players dance and sing to the rhythm of Freed from desire, the planetary tube of Gala and unofficial anthem of the Blues for this competition. “I know you are dancing inside,” commented the 47-year-old Milanese on her Instagram post by identifying the French president. Present in Qatar, the singer interviewed by BFM TV declared that she had not yet been able to meet the Blues but that she hoped to be able to greet them in the locker room, without specifying whether she would push the song with them.
14,000 police deployed in France for the final, cars banned from the Champs-Élysées
Some 12,800 police and gendarmes will be mobilized on Saturday in France to ensure the security of the festivities surrounding the small final of the World Cup and 14,000 on Sunday for the final (including 2,750 in Paris). The device is larger than that deployed for the semi-final (10,000 members of the police). If the Champs-Elysées will remain open to traffic on Saturday, they will be completely pedestrianized on Sunday. Gérald Darmanin recalled that in 2018, 600,000 people gathered on the Champs to celebrate the victory of the Blues.