Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines (France) (AFP)

The French team is preparing to take the road to the Euro, a "journey" which will pass through Munich and Budapest then, in the event of qualification, other cities of the continent, with the logistical challenges that this represents and the threat, still tenacious, of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Monday morning, the Clairefontaine training center (Yvelines), where the Blues prepared for their competition, will only be a memory of the past.

The world champions will fly to Munich, location of their first meeting against Germany, the following evening at the Allianz Arena.

Bavaria will be the first stage of an adventure marked by uncertainties ... If the two other group matches, against Hungary on June 19 and Portugal on June 23, are well scheduled in Budapest (Hungary) 600 kilometers further down the line. 'Is, the rest of the program is largely undecided if the Habs qualify for the knockout stages.

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The first place in Group F will imply an 8th in Bucharest (Romania), a destination rather quickly accessible from Hungary.

But the potential quarter-final would be much further away, in Saint Petersburg (Russia).

In case of second place, the Blues will go to London for the 8th, and would then have a quarter-final in Rome.

As for the scenarios of a potential third place in the group, there are several: Seville (8th) then Munich (quarter) or Budapest (8th) then Baku (quarter), an interminable trip to Azerbaijan ...

- Small base camp in Hungary -

The only certainty is that the epilogue is scheduled in London, host of the semi-finals and the final of the competition on July 11.

But until then, the puzzle will persist.

"We have a journey, but we had a worse one in March," said coach Didier Deschamps at the start of preparation.

It must be said that at the beginning of spring, the Blues had chained three qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup in eight days, the first in Saint-Denis, the second in Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan) and the third in Sarajevo (Bosnia) ...

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The French Federation still had to anticipate this new format, which largely changes the program of a usual major competition, where each team chooses a base camp for the duration of the tournament, sending tons of medical equipment, sports equipment. and other administrative supplies.

As early as January 2020, before the outbreak of Covid-19, the management of the Blues met in a seminar to establish the outlines of its program.

Initially, it was even envisaged to establish the base camp at the Clairefontaine training center during the whole competition, by going back and forth during the meetings.

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But a year later, a different option was chosen by the staff: a departure for Munich on the eve of the first match, and the establishment of a small base camp on the shores of Lake Velence in Gardony, 50 km away. southwest of Budapest, between the two matches of the first round in Hungary and a few days after the second.

As a result, the Blues will only return to France in one scenario: in the event of the round of 16 in London (2nd place in group F).

- "The risk is there" -

The provisional agenda was not completed until the end of April, because Seville, a potential venue for a round of 16 for the Blues, was only included at the last minute in the organizing cities, instead of Bilbao ...

"It is not a usual Euro, first of all because it takes place in eleven countries and, on top of that, there is the pandemic which makes travel even more difficult", explained the president of the UEFA Aleksander Ceferin at AFP.

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For the Blues, the threat of the pandemic will indeed be omnipresent.

If the staff have been vaccinated, no player vaccination campaign has been organized, and the numerous anti-Covid tests carried out before each trip will add additional tension to each trip.

If "even the vaccinated officials must be tested before each match", as confirmed by Ceferin, the slightest contamination will have immense consequences on the millimeter program of the world champions.

"These are complicated situations to manage," acknowledged Deschamps in recent days.

"The risk is there, we are not immune".

© 2021 AFP