For the first time since the final of Euro 2016, the two nations meet at the Stade de France.
One room, two atmospheres. More than four years have passed since the final of Euro 2016, and France is preparing to find Portugal (8:45 p.m., M6) in a completely different decorum. An empty, soulless Stade de France, in which it will be as easy to hear Didier Deschamps’ instructions to his players as the din of cars emanating from the A1 motorway located on the outskirts of the Dionysian enclosure. So that’s the famous next world. Despite an environment as sad as it is sinister, the magic of football allows us to wait for this reunion between the Portuguese European champions and the French world champions with impatience and greed.
Eder, executioner in 2016, is no longer there
It is not every day that such a poster appears. And the Blues, attractive Wednesday against Ukraine (7-1), still have not digested the affront of July 10, 2016 in a full Stade de France this time, with the unexpected goal of Eder at the end of the night (0-1). Moreover, the Portuguese hero, absent Sunday against the French, is as quickly returned to the shadows that he appeared in the light on this fatal summer evening for the men of Deschamps. Today he rages in total anonymity under the colors of Lokomotiv Moscow.
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Present that evening, just like Lloris, Griezmann, Giroud or Martial and Coman, Paul Pogba quickly sets the scene for this shock of the third day of the League of Nations: “We want to show them that we are better. The message is crystal clear and bears witness to the still painful scar in the blue ranks despite the world coronation experienced two years later in Russia. A frustration that will also have served as a motor in the search for the Grail in Moscow.
“This is the worst moment of my career in selection, I cried bitter tears,” we also whispered Olivier Giroud, revenge at the idea of finding the reigning European champions and also driven by the ‘idea to come back a little more on Thierry Henry in the ranking of the best scorers in the history of the Blues, after having passed Michel Platini on Wednesday. The task does not look easy for the world champions against the band of Cristiano Ronaldo, but the clash makes salivate the Kylian Mbappé and Eduardo Camavinga, the two new nuggets of French football, aged 17 and 13 at the time. of the final lost by France. It is also a sign that time is passing at breakneck speed, but that the cracks remain. To the Blues to make them a little less painful.
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