Phew! Thursday noon, during the last press briefing of the Blues before the semi-final of the Euro against Sweden this Friday evening (8:30 p.m., live on TF1 and beIN sport), Guillaume Gille did not yet know if he was going to have to follow the match on TV from his hotel room in Budapest. It’s been a week since the coach of the Blues, positive for Covid-19, placed in solitary confinement, has been spinning like a lion in a cage around his bed, far from his group.
But it is only a bad memory: the boss of the Blues successfully passed the two negative PCR tests in 24 hours as required by the protocol. He will therefore be well on the bench against the Swedes this Friday to open the door to the Blues for a European final: “We are going to face a very valuable opponent, who has also had these problems and been affected by the Covid , notes Gilles. We have a good armada in front of us. We arrive at the time when stories are written. »
Since his solitary confinement on January 21 for a minimum period of five days, which has therefore been extended a little, it was Érick Mathé, his assistant, who had taken over the management of the coaching of the Blues. It was a first for the Chambéry coach who started with a heavy defeat against Iceland (21-29). Montenegro was then dominated (36-27) before the match of madness against Denmark (30-39).
The last match directed by Guillaume Gille before his isolation was the one against the Netherlands at the start of the main round, on January 20, the day before his positive PCR test. The Blues had largely won (34-24).
This Friday, they find Sweden against whom they lost almost to the day a year ago at the Egyptian World Cup. It was… In the semi-final: “Tomorrow’s semi-final (Friday) will not give us back the one we lost a year ago in Egypt, continues Gille. Our adversary has become again for a few years a team in the elite of the nations which count with a very talented young generation. But the contexts are different. We were at that time in a phase of taking control of the group, with uncertainties. We arrived a little short of energy and fuel and we had badly negotiated this half with Sweden who had dominated us in all sectors. Today we are focused on the event that we are going to experience”.
