Szombathely (Hungary) (AFP)

Three matches in less than eight days against Denmark, Russia and Iceland: the France Espoirs team starts the first phase of the Euro this week in Hungary, but its extraordinary potential allows it to aim higher than the simple qualification for the final phase

"We have a team with a lot of potential. There are a lot of expectations and we are satisfied with them. But the challenge on the ground will be to live up to the expectations created by reading this list," a coach Sylvain Ripoll recalled Monday.

These famous names that aroused so much curiosity when Ripoll unveiled his group last week, they are those of Camavinga (Rennes) or Ikoné (Lille), already passed by the team of France A, Kamara (Marseille) or Koundé (Seville), who are very close to it, or even Tchouaméni (Monaco), Fofana (Leicester), Badiashile (Monaco) or Gouiri (Nice), all authors of a high-level season in elite clubs.

The Bleuets have however already lost two valuable elements, with the packages of Diaby (Leverkusen, Covid) and Aouar (Lyon, muscle injury).

But given the performance of their replacements Claude-Maurice (Nice) and Laurienté (Lorient) on the last day of Ligue 1, there is no need to worry.

Qualified for this Euro in two pieces thanks to their first place in the qualifiers, the teammates of the neo-captain Matteo Guendouzi, fell in the group C, homogeneous and which seems in their hand, against Denmark, Russia and the Iceland.

Their seeded status prevented them from facing Spain, Germany or England from the hens, traditional terrors of the age category, but they also escaped Portugal, Italy or the Netherlands.

"I am wary of these stories of high-sounding names. The degree of vigilance must be exactly the same because we have strong, dangerous opponents, who are going to pose us problems," nevertheless assured Ripoll, who recalls that Russia and Denmark also finished at the top of their hens.

- goal, to win -

Anyway, young French people know that their brief stay in western Hungary will not be a piece of cake.

On Monday, they met at Clairefontaine, where they underwent PCR test and doping control.

On Tuesday, they will fly to their base camp in Bük and on Wednesday, it will already be time for match-day training against Denmark.

Then, everything will follow very quickly with Russia on Sunday and Iceland the following Wednesday.

"We are used to having only two or three working days before the first game," said Ripoll.

"To compensate for the lack of time, we rely on a group that knows each other well and on things that have already been put in place. But it's true that with players who played on Sunday, we didn't in fact only one training, that of the day before the match, to prepare together for the meeting, "he added.

But the goal, of course, is to get out of the hen.

"I thought about performance and the short term, so I am focused on the first phase. The challenge is to qualify," recalled the coach last week.

Then there will be the final phase, with a new list, which will also be impressive, even if some can still dream of the Euro of the great, with the A team of Didier Deschamps.

Later still, some will perhaps be in Tokyo with the French Olympic team.

But this generation of 1998 can already think big among the Hopes.

Guendouzi reminded us on the evening of qualifying, "the objective is to win the Euro".

Les Bleuets have not done so since 1988.

© 2021 AFP