2023-08-12 16:37:13
Defender Wendie Renard comforts striker Vicki Becho after the defeat of Les Bleues against the Australians in the quarter-finals of the Women’s World Cup, at the Brisbane stadium (Australia), on August 12, 2023. FRANCK FIFE / AFP
There was a scent of the irrational, an almost mystical atmosphere around the quarter-final against Australia, Saturday August 12, in Brisbane. On several occasions, the Blues have thought that success would make them their favorites. But this rascal of fate slipped away at the last moment, turning its back on the French footballers. Eliminated on penalties (0-0, 6-7 pens), they suffered one of the biggest disappointments in their history.
On Saturday, at Brisbane Stadium, an enclosure built on the site of the city’s first cemetery in the 19th century, the Bleues once again bury their illusions of world semi-finals. They who delivered a courageous match and who had victory within reach. “Fate chose Australia. It’s a shame for us to go home”summarizes the French coach, Hervé Renard, fatalistic.
After 2015 and 2019, the France team again gave in before the last four. The nose in bulk following a shock with an opponent, Eugénie Le Sommer expresses this vertigo of a defeat in which one does not believe: “I felt we were capable of winning, I believed in it until the end and it’s even more difficult to lose when you believed in it so much. »
Read also: France – Australia: beaten on penalties, the Blue fail at the gates of the semi-finals
At the end of a close match, extra time and an unbreathable penalty shootout, where each side had several match points, Cortnee Vine transformed the seventh Australian penalty, synonymous with qualification for the host country and tricolor tears. Like those of vice-captain Grace Geyoro, very marked after the match: “It hurts a lot to lose at this stage of the competition. » Regrets amplified by the feeling of having given everything. “We fought, we defended and we played in front of an entire nation, but we went all the way. This group, I have nothing to reproach him for. »
“If we win, I’m the king of the world. Tonight I am nothing
From immense joy to immeasurable sadness, there are sometimes only a few centimeters, those which did not allow Solène Durand – who entered the game specially for the penalty shootout one minute from the end – to offer the victory at Les Bleues on the sixth decisive attempt by Katrina Gorry.
The third tricolor goalkeeper came within a hair’s breadth of being the unexpected heroine of this meeting. She fended off two Australian shots, including a crucial fist save against Clare Hunt who had the chance to send the Matildas through to the semi-finals. “It hits the pole [sur la cinquième tentative australienne], then we say it’s for us. Then Solène stops another one, we tell ourselves again that it will be for us. Once, twice, the third, it goes to the bottom for Australia”traces the captain, Wendie Renard.
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