Qualified for the first Final Four of the Women’s Nations League, French footballers want to assert their ambitions. First in the semi-final on Friday in Lyon against their bête noire, Germany, then by trying to win the first title in their history. An ideal rehearsal before the Olympic Games at home this summer where the French team hopes to shine and win.
Published on: 02/23/2024 – 3:32 p.m.
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On the road to Paris and the Olympic Games, Les Bleues want to light the flame of passion around the French team and women’s football. They are banking on the Final Four of the brand new Nations League to achieve this. A final square of competition which sees them face Germany, Friday February 23 in Lyon, in the semi-final.
“This could send a very big detonation, a message to say that France is ready to win major competitions,” said goalkeeper Pauline Peyraud-Magnin to AFP. “The Nations League is important for us to win, it will be the march, the little extra that will ensure that we have very good Games.”
The League of Nations certainly does not have the prestige of a World Cup, a Euro or an Olympic medal. However, it remains a real continental trophy, which would finally open the still empty prize list of the Bleues if we except the very anecdotal Tournois de France (2020, 2022, 2023) and the SheBelieves Cup 2017.
“We are on the verge of winning this first trophy with the French team,” recalls striker Amandine Henry. We dreamed of having attractive matches more often, so this is the opportunity.”
Half-filled stadium
To conquer the French public, there is still a way to go. The Groupama stadium, OL’s usual home, will not be full to capacity. While it has 60,000 places, only 30,000 places have been opened for sale by the FFF. And among those, there are still places left.
“There is still work to be done. It’s desperate. What more needs to be done?” asks striker Amandine Henry. “We, the players, we give our all. It’s a beautiful poster, it’s a beautiful stadium, a beautiful city… We don’t know what to do. We talk about it, we ask ourselves the question : what can we do to fill stadiums? When we see other countries, it works. Why doesn’t it work for us? We don’t really understand.”
Amandine Henry REGRETS the low attendance for France-Germany in Lyon tomorrow. ❌
Nearly 25,000 spectators are expected with a capacity of nearly 60,000 seats. ????️ ????????
And so far only 30,000 tickets have been opened for sale by the FFF. ????
???? “There is… pic.twitter.com/dmPAK6acn5
— Footeuses (@foo_teuses) February 22, 2024
Despite the disappointment of a lower occupancy rate compared to England, Spain or the United States, the attendance will be the largest in history for Les Bleues outside the World Cup.
Germany and Popp, pet peeves
So far, the French team has had a perfect run in the Nations League with five wins, one draw, nine goals scored and only one conceded. But after the modest Austria, Norway and Portugal, the new opponent of the Blues is of another caliber.
France has never beaten Germany in official competition. Recently, she cruelly deprived the Blues of a first final during Euro-2022 in England.
Read alsoThe German Alexandra Popp, serial scorer despite the obstacles
But since then, Germany, world champion in 2003 and 2007 and Olympic champion in 2016, experienced major disappointment this summer during the World Cup in Australia with elimination in the group stages. A first in its history. She therefore hopes to re-mobilize by qualifying for the Olympics, with the final victory in the Nations League serving as the ticket.
It will also be necessary to exorcise the bad luck which seems to have struck the French nationals against Horst Hrubesch, executioner of French romanticism one night in 1982 in Seville and of several French clubs with Hamburg SV: “We – and me personally – always have very good memories matches against France”, the German coach smiled at a press conference.
Finally, striker Alexandra Popp will pose a serious challenge to Hervé Renard’s players: the German star seems untenable every time she comes across Les Bleues, scoring twice in the last two confrontations.
“She never scored against me,” Hervé Renard, the French coach, tried to play down the drama.
Wendi Renard absent
“I think we have made a lot of progress over the past few months, the World Cup has served us a lot,” said Hervé Renard at a press conference on Thursday, and “what happened before that is part of history, history is to be written in the fairly near present and in the short-term future.
Since the elimination against Australia in the quarter-finals of the last World Cup, “we have learned a lot, we have improved certain things, you need confidence in yourself, in your partners, when you have unshakeable confidence, there is no “There is no need to fear anything,” assured the French technician, who should team up in front of Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Kadidiatou Diani and Eugénie Le Sommer, captain due to Wendie Renard’s loss.
Without the Lyonnaise and her 87 meter, the French will have to manage the heading game of the Germans and in particular of Alexandra Popp. The absence of Renard should give way to a hinge composed of Griedge Mbock and Maëlle Lakrar, with Elisa De Almeida on the right side and Sakina Karchaoui, left side.
In the event of victory, the rest will be written on Wednesday February 28 against the winner of the other semi-final, Spain – Netherlands, two countries determined to qualify for the Olympics.
