• Called for the first time in Blue in May 2019, Lyonnais Léo Dubois now has seven selections in Blue.

  • Despite the lackluster season for OL, which finished at the foot of the podium in L1, the right-back has always hoped to be part of the group of 26 for the Euro.

  • For 20 Minutes, he looks back on his integration in blue two years ago and on the atmosphere that emerges from the group less than two weeks before the start of the competition.

Regularly called by Didier Deschamps to the French team for two years now, Léo Dubois will experience for the first time in his career a major international competition with the selection.

Holder on the right flank of the Lyon defense, the former Nantes player is coming out of a full season unfortunately punctuated by the failure of the Champions League qualification.

If he obviously does not have the same status in Blue as at OL, the side has the feeling today of being perfectly integrated into this group.

For

20 Minutes

, he agreed to give us his first impressions of this French team in search of a historic World Cup-Euro double.

Benjamin Pavard was replaced at the break against the Welsh and it was Jules Koundé who entered in his place.

Did you have a little physical problem or was it Didier Deschamps' choice?

It's a choice of the coach at the time, on my side physically everything is fine.

On paper, you have been called upon to be Pavard's understudy at the Euro… What do we say to each other instantly when we see that it is not us that we are called to enter?

Are there any doubts?

Obviously there is something to think about at the time, but I have that character of never complaining, of working in training and of giving 100% of myself on the pitch.

So I don't ask myself a thousand questions either, I'm here to put myself at the service of this team if I am called upon and to be part of this great adventure.

As I already said, I will keep my role until the end, there is no question to ask, you just have to work more and more for the group.

In some writings, in some interviews, we have the feeling that you are sometimes called into question, that your place in the 26 is not legitimate.

Doesn't that tire you out in the long run?

Tiring I do not know, what is certain is that the debates will always exist from the moment we are taken from a list for a European Championship or a World Cup.

There are always debates around each player, that's how it is, you have to learn to live with it.

I have been doing this job for enough time now to be able to manage these periods, these discussions, and continue to work hard in my corner.

And then we have goals so high that we don't necessarily have the time to dwell on what is being said around us.

It will be two years since you joined the A. How do you find your place in a group of world champions who already have a good life together without you?

They have an enormous common experience, it is clear, but this experience is hyperpositive so it is quite easy to live. I've been working with this group for two years and today I feel fully integrated. When I arrived, I remained myself, I did not try to change because it was the France team. And on arrival it simply matched. I did not worry more than that even though I knew I was arriving in an environment where there was a certain expectation due to the title of world champion. I experienced it serenely, positively. Now the integration phase is behind me, we are entering a phase of competition and we all have to go together to look for something huge, that's why everyone must pull in the direction of the collective to go to the end.

Is the group you discovered in May 2019 still very much cemented by the Russian adventure or has it definitely moved on?

A bit of both, in fact!

We are going on a new adventure of course, but there is still a big framework from 2018. And since it worked very well in Russia three years ago, it would be a shame not to rely on this experience, on this adventure, to go get something fantastic this summer.

In a club, you begin to have a great experience of the role of captain, whether in Nantes or sometimes in Lyon.

Isn't it complicated to come into a group and have a different status?

It is true that I have this lived, this experience, but today in the France team it is not necessarily my role. Everyone has to find their place, there are a lot of players in the group who have enormous experience at a very high level, at international level, everyone here has already won trophies, so they know how to react in a context of great competition. , how to react to everything that is happening around us. I am there with an attentive ear with the guys so that, once I return to Lyon, I can in turn bring this experience of the international level. In the France team today, I take everything there is to take to grow and progress.

You said to our colleagues from

Ouest France

that the role of captain characterizes your personality.

However, in the media, it is often your shyness and this "boy who does not wave" side that stands out.

Are we wrong about you?

No I don't think anyone's wrong about me.

Everyone has the right to have an opinion on the person and the player that I am.

I am someone who has great self-confidence but who also knows how to stay in his place.

Afterwards, I also know how to intervene when I feel the need, I am someone very attentive to others.

There are different ways of approaching the role of captain and that's mine.

I try to take what I can in the management of each other and then build in my own way my type of captaincy with a group.

You explained in another interview that you have always had the France team in the back of your mind. Do you make your career and club choices based on that?

The France team is what made me dream when I was little, quite simply. Afterwards, over the years we realize that this dream can come true, so yes of course we try to make our career choices based on this objective. I chose OL because I knew that it was a club that could offer me this opportunity, I knew that if I managed to assert myself as a holder in Lyon that could open the doors for me. des Bleus and that's what happened. I'm happy with that, I think I made a good career choice. Now you have to continue to work because it is not because you play regularly for OL or in another bigger club that the France team is insured. Considering the quality and number of talented players who can apply for a place in the squad,you have to work a little harder every day to be able to come back to it.

Nothing is ever acquired in Blue ...

Yes, but that's also what makes the beauty of the France team, you have to work constantly and be the best possible to be able to appear there.

This is really what makes a selection so special.

As such, how do you judge your season in Lyon?

Personally, I find it satisfactory.

I had set myself the goal of being at the Euro and I knew that it would necessarily go through good performances at OL.

If I am there it is because I made good ones, that I deserve this place.

I am happy with what I have done and my progress, although I know there are still a lot of

steps

.

[landings] to be crossed.

I have played my greatest number of games in a season since my arrival in Lyon, I have chained the games together, that's good.

After that, it's difficult not to link that to the collective and with the results we had at the end, it's impossible to be satisfied with that when we play for OL.

We did everything to be able to snatch the podium, we did not succeed, it's unfortunate but it's sport.

We will bounce back next season, I'm convinced of that.

You contracted Covid-19 during the season, how did it go when you came back to the field?

Nobody reacts in the same way, there are players who recover very quickly, others a little less.

It is quite complicated to answer this question because we do not have enough perspective yet.

But this is not trivial, it is a disease that affects the respiratory tract so as a high level athlete, it can be crippling between quotes, even if it is a very big word.

Let's say disturbing, rather.

And personally, you did not feel any particular difficulties to come back to the level?

After the illness I needed a little time to adapt, but it was not very bad.

Back to the Blues.

Sorry for the cliché, but we have the feeling from the outside that this group lives really well, that it is happy to meet at each gathering.

How do you see it from the inside?

It is a group that has an incredible human quality, there are a lot of exchanges, discussions, sharing.

This is not always the case in groups but this is really what is happening and it's great to experience from the inside.

And then, beyond the human quality, there is also a collective and individual quality on the ground which is quite extraordinary.

So yes, the group is living well as you say, it even lives very well!

Now, we know that we have to succeed in transcribing this in the field, it will be up to us to prove in the facts that this group enjoys living together.

We will inevitably experience a little more complicated moments during the competition and this is where the group life, the osmosis that there is between us and that we have created on a daily basis, will have to emerge.

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