the Blues in a new dimension – Liberation

Opposed to the Polish selection and its forged football on Sunday at the Al-Thumama stadium in Doha in the round of 16 of the World Cup, the Habs are on the threshold of their second Qatari life: knockout matches, “another competition” for coach Didier Deschamps, defender Axel Disasi, striker Antoine Griezmann and so on. Another planet, to poetize the case. Seen from the blue train, it is never a luxury. Indeed circulated at the beginning of the week, before the redacted match (0-1) Wednesday against the Tunisian selection, a funny graph.

The expected goals (expected goals in relation to the chances created by a team) on the abscissa, the threats created – i.e. the possibilities of opportunities, we go back a notch upstream of the action of the game in relation to the expected goals – on the ordinate, a solid guarantee since the author of the study, Karun Singh, works in the data department of the current Premier League leader, FC Arsenal. The diagram is to die for: 31 teams in a pack, more (Germany, Spain, South Korea…) or less (Costa Rica, Morocco, Australia…) in front, and the Blues completely detached. All the way up, all the way to the right: exiled in their palace of mirrors, somewhere in the middle of the clouds, eying the humanity of the balloon as one looks at a submerged world. Far, to be honest, from the visual impression (but what is it worth?) left on Wednesday or after the previous match snatched (2-1) from Ras Abou Aboud against the Danish selection.

It’s been two weeks since this strange competition began, furiously resembling the Olympic Games, since everything that happens there is less than an hour away by transport wherever we are, we have something approaching under the nose: an intertwining of levels of reality that one struggles to disentangle. The front of “awareness” (whatever that means, for us as for them) is not an easy task here. Not a press conference where one of the players called in front of the microphones (they go through two, one after the other) has not been questioned on this, the financial endowment fund “to NGOs working for the protection of human rights” thus constituting an object of fascination: if the players finally spoke with one voice, it was necessary to agree between the supporters of a pure and hard apolitical line, for fear of getting burned or for the sake of consistency with the federal doxa , and those who, like vice-captain Raphaël Varane, have pushed the cursor towards broader horizons.

Therefore, we confess to having experienced a fundamental moment: the arrival of Marcus Thuram, son of, in front of the microphones just before the meeting against the Danes. We quickly dropped the pen: “I don’t put pressure on myself”, “the Germans [qui ont mis leur main sur la bouche pour symboliser leur liberté d’expression bridée avant leur match face aux Japonais, ndlr] do what they want”, “we didn’t talk about it”, I don’t know anything… In short, if the player doesn’t care, he finds himself quite quickly in front of an audience who won’t care squared, and even cubed. However, a colleague did not resolve to do so.

Bring the player out of his shell

Highly politicized, no doubt because he has someone to hold on to, the Borussia Mönchengladbach striker had in his time knelt on the ground in tribute to George Floyd, a black man killed by the Minneapolis police in May 2020, which had not gone unnoticed – or alone – under the leaden screed where professional football thrives. It was still necessary to bring the player out of his shell. And without insulting him – say, are you kidding us? – again since the right to say nothing is inalienable. The journalist thus probed the tricolor international on the reason for his pithy answers, evoking in advance a possible protection: Thuram seemed to be surprised, a student discovering late that he did not understand the statement.

Suddenly, the nature of his answers changed completely. On this World Cup with reversed front and, who knows, on Poland: “We can no longer have surprises in a World Cup in 2022. It no longer makes sense. There are very big names in so-called small teams, everyone works…” Of his father’s 142 capes, a record that Hugo Lloris will equal on Sunday: “But Dad only wants one thing, it’s for Hugo to beat him, this record! It will mean that we will go far. I love my daddy, I’ve known him since I was little [taquin]. His two goals against Croatia [en demi-finale du Mondial 1998], yes … so already, he did not score on purpose (bursts of laughter). On his post-Euro 2021 air pocket: “There was a real awareness. I did a lot of work on myself. I got injured in the club, I didn’t come back as I would have liked to come back and I saw the French team escape without me. No mental trainer, no: it was my father who helped me.

On his daily life during this World Cup: “They are world-class players and you have to learn everywhere because everything is important: the training, the private life, the way they behave in everyday life… They leave nothing to chance.” And on Kylian Mbappé, a delicate subject since the superstar of the Blues has planned his media invisibility in Qatar and the expression of a point of view somehow contravenes the will of the Parisian striker: “I have known Kylian since he played for the France U19 team. [moins de 19 ans]. I’m a year older, I was in the upper age category, but we all knew he had something special. We talked about it a lot. No, he hasn’t changed. He loves football.” It was enough to ask. The Bondynois has not stepped out of line by the grace of his accomplishments: he has been walking alongside since he was a kid. On Wednesday, in the mixed zone of the Education City stadium in Al-Rayyan, devoted to exchanges between the players and the journalists after the matches, the atmosphere was light: a joke here, a smile from Steve Mandanda there and a a parade of somewhat crazy players, echoing – at least one can imagine – a peaceful social life at the palace of Al-Messila which shelters them.

Ousmane Dembélé, the man who gets up from the table when a cat crosses the gardens of the Hôtel des Bleus because he’s afraid of it (true), passed by hilarious: a quick note Ousmane, you’re the last! “Oh no guys! Wait, there is still some heavy stuff! In fact, Mbappé brought up the rear. Neither smile, nor tension, nor overplayed complicity: the only one to cross the stack of corridors looking straight ahead. After the victories in front of the Australian and Danish selections, the Parisian striker was named “man of the match” by the international federation, something more promotional than sporting – although Mbappé deserved it both times – which forced the winner to appear at a press conference to answer three questions.

The brand of the greatest

Mbappé does not go there, his federation pays the fine for him and the exegeses spin in the sky of Doha. The romantic version: the desire not to lend itself to the marketing of Fifa in its most artificial. The version concerned: the American beer brand Budweiser, which sponsors the (pseudo) trophy, is not the kind of sponsor to which the player wishes to attach his name; an extension of the field of the fight since Mbappé has already initiated the cleaning among those who sponsor him within the framework of the tricolor rallies. And the most obvious, clearest version, announced in the preamble by those close to the star: I speak with my feet. I will assume whatever there is to assume afterwards. In Mexico, during the 1986 World Cup, Michel Platini did not speak to anyone except Europe 1, with whom he was in contract.

Zinedine Zidane went through the 2006 World Cup in Germany almost without saying a word: two sentences dropped out of weakness after the round of 16 against Spain, on the verge of his sporting death. In the case of Mbappé, he can possibly open up to something else, because the winners have the privilege of giving the meaning they want to their achievements: we will then understand his level of reality. Until that happens, if it does happen, the story is the same: silence as a royal seal, the mark of the greatest. Antoine Griezmann, the attacking leader of 2018 with whom Mbappé will have long scrapped behind the scenes, had not spoken for almost a year either.

He walked past the microphones on Friday. And the first question was about Mbappé. “It’s not the same as in 2018, no. Neither the same player nor the same man. He’s more “inside”, he brings joy to life because he’s accountable for what happens in the group. He also knows that he now lives under the eye of journalists, fans, his teammates too and it’s not the same. A time out. “He is irreproachable!” A great moment of balance: Mbappé has superpowers, we are there for him, let go of his crampons and count on me to keep an eye on him. I’ll tell you all about it. Promised.