The French football team will play two preparation matches for the 2026 World Cup against an African team in Nantes on June 4 and a European team on June 8 in a stadium to be determined, the president of the French Football Federation Philippe Diallo said on Thursday.
The French team will receive “in Nantes a team which played in the CAN”, explained the manager after the meeting of the FFF’s comex (executive committee), without giving further details. It will of course not be Senegal that the Blues will face in their first match at the World Cup. According to our information, which confirms that of the Team, it could be Côte d’Ivoire, eliminated in the quarter-finals of the CAN by Egypt (3-2), even if nothing has been decided yet.
The location was not chosen at random and will be a nice “wink” to Didier Deschamps. The coach of the Blues, who will leave his position as coach after the World Cup, was in fact trained at FC Nantes. “DD” left the Canaries in 1989 for OM after playing 123 matches.
And the opponent on June 8 “will depend on the results of the European playoffs in March,” only indicated the president of the Football Federation.
“The wish is to play this match in Paris, but it is not completely finalized,” added Diallo, specifying that there were concerts by French DJ David Guetta on June 11, 12 and 13 at the Stade de France, and that the Parc des Princes could be immobilized by a pitch changing device.
The match could be played north of Paris so that the Blues are not too far from their Clairefontaine training center because they will leave for the United States “on the afternoon of June 9 (for their base camp in Boston),” said Diallo.
Didier Deschamps’ men will play two matches in the USA in March, the 26th in Boston against Brazil and the 29th in Washington against Colombia.
During the World Cup (June 11 to July 19) in the United States, Canada and Mexico, they will set up base camp at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston and train on the grounds of Babson College, a private business school located about thirty minutes from the center of the big Massachusetts city.
The Blues, seeded in Group I, will face Senegal on the east coast of the United States on June 16 in the suburbs of New York, a play-off to be determined between Iraq, Bolivia or Suriname on June 22 in Philadelphia, and Norway on the 26 in Boston.
Didier Deschamps will reveal the list of players selected for the World Cup in mid-May.
