France National Team – World Cup – List of Blues 23 or 26? Didier Deschamps faced a dilemma

If Covid and passing from 3 to 5 substitutions have made life easier for coaches all over the world and, above all, the very big clubs on the planet with seat XXL and similar evolving ego to please the national coaches they do not have not everyone has necessarily tasted the other fix that was outlined during The pandemic and who survived it: Lists extended up to 26 lists called up for a European Championship or, as far as we’re concerned, a World Cup.

On paper, having 26 players on hand means offering three more solutions to a problem that will come up virtually during competition. But also three other possibilities for collapse. Three additional opportunities are also to create problems where they do not necessarily exist.

Some see the glass as half full, Didier Deschamps looks at it with more caution. And this is since Euro 2021. At that time, the coach took a group of 26 members to Munich, Budapest and Bucharest. Which didn’t make the blues stronger, quite the opposite. And unless he solves the loopholes that have marked their path, too. Especially during the round of 16 against Switzerland (3-3, 4 tab to 5).

balance management

Ahead of the Blues’ last game against Denmark, last September, Deschamps opened the question: “I have a certain margin between 23 and 26. If I think it is better … I will take that example again, but in the Euro, we were 26. If you have two injured players in the same position (Note: Lucas Hernandez and Lucas Digne) … Fortunately, we had Adrien (Rabiot) to make up. It is also important to have multi-skilled players. Being twenty-six does not guarantee that we will be stronger. There are only eleven places left on the field despite an increase in their number on the bench and on the score sheet.” To put it simply, finding yourself at 23 or 26 when fate is in the corner of your nose doesn’t change fate, judge DD.

When he leaves on 23 or 26, even on 24 or 25, he changes the balance – the one with which the ten-year coach of the France team is linked more than – is on a daily basis. Especially during training sessions. When 11v11 competitions are organized, there is no room for everyone. Before FIFA changed the rules and went to 26, the pattern was simple: 10 players off the field faced 10 players off the field with two goalkeepers called. The third goalkeeper, who used to be a separate member of a select group, counts the points.

Today, as we saw last summer during open press sessions, players spend their lives exchanging intersections and living on the fringes of the group. Perhaps Leo Dubois remembers her with a certain feeling. Lyon at the time, who could have come in handy on the left against Switzerland, made the number during the Euro. Which is not fun either for players or for employees who strive every day to boost their group. This situation can amount to contentiousness, which, let’s be honest, was not the case in 2021.

slice before

If today DD hesitates to include Olivier Giroud – with an unquestionable performance but with a clear past temperament – in his 23-man roster, will it create unnecessary problems with three additional players who will have little chance of stomping on the grass in Qatar? ? It’s best to decide before you have to play the role of a firefighter.

However, the current state of the Blues, with players on the border, like Raphaël Varane or Presnel Kimpembe to name a few, may force him to open up his roster more than he would have liked in an ideal world. This would also allow him, in the event of a malfunction, not to have to call anyone back by Monday, which is the deadline for final lists.

In 2022, extending the match sheet to twenty-six is ​​a plus for the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth summoner and an asset for Didier Deschamps who will not have anyone to send to the stands. But will the argument be enough to convince the Blues coach on the verge of participating in the World Cup finals for the third time on the bench? At this time, Didier Deschamps dreams above all of having 23 capable players.