Late on Tuesday evening, less than 72 hours before the start of the European Football Championship, Didier Deschamps, the coach of the French national team, is sitting in the press room of the Stade de France in Saint-Denis and talks about the eight minutes that the fans in his home country earlier unsettled in the evening.

Christopher Meltzer

Sports correspondent in Munich.

  • Follow I follow

    In the 31st minute, the French striker Karim Benzema jumps up in the friendly against Bulgaria, falls down and then gets to his feet only slowly.

    In the 33rd minute he stands at the center line and circles his right knee, which is obviously aching.

    In the 35th minute, he can be treated quickly on the sidelines.

    In the 37th minute he suddenly sits down on the lawn and touches his knee.

    In the 39th minute he runs, accompanied by two coaches, back to the sideline, where a new player comes on for him.

    And when one of the supervisors felt his knee on the bench and Benzema grimaced, many French fans shared their uncertainty on the Internet.

    "There are worse things in life"

    Late on Tuesday evening, Deschamps sat relaxed in his chair in the press room and said: “There are worse things in life.” It is remarkable that the French coach obviously does not let himself be unsettled when he meets his striker, who has been in the past three Has scored 21, 21 and 23 goals for Real Madrid in the Spanish league so close to a major tournament. "He was hit on the knee and on the muscle and didn't want to take any risks," says Deschamps later.

    Benzema is now ready for the first European Championship game against Germany this Tuesday (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship, on ZDF and on MagentaTV).

    On Saturday he took part in team training again and then announced: “I had no pain or discomfort.

    So I'm 100 percent ready for action. ”And anyone who remembers the 2018 World Cup can understand why Deschamps didn't let himself be unsettled anyway.

    His team could not be beaten even without Karim Benzema.

    If you want to understand how the French won the most important trophy in world football three years ago, you have to study how the game developed.

    At that time there was still a power vacuum that arose after the end of the Spanish ball possession hegemony in the summer of 2014.

    A few months ago, world champion captain Philipp Lahm analyzed the style change that has taken place since then in an FAS interview: “There is clearly less possession of the ball, less control of the game.

    More back and forth, more up and down.

    The game becomes more athletic.

    It's about a quick game with a quick finish.

    (...) The focus is on athletic, fast players. ”This theory can also be substantiated by the fact that Liverpool and Chelsea won the Champions League in this way.

    The first “smoking gun” evidence was there before that: the French national team won the World Cup.

    France and the super athletes

    As a trainer, Didier Deschamps relies on an axis of exceptional athletes.

    In defense it's Raphaël Varane and Presnel Kimpembe.

    In midfield there are Paul Pogba and especially N'Golo Kanté.

    In the storm, it's Kylian Mbappé.

    And because he has surrounded his super athletes with players who do their jobs reliably, he was able to develop a team that set the standard for the time being.

    Now Deschamps wants to continue to be at the forefront of progress with her - and has made a courageous decision to do so.

    He nominated Karim Benzema.

    That doesn't sound brave, because Benzema, 33 years old, is arguably the best center forward of the past decade.

    It is not that simple.

    Because there's a good reason he hasn't played for his country in over five years.

    In the fall of 2015, it emerged that he allegedly blackmailed Mathieu Valbuena, his former teammate from the national team, with a sex video. He was charged with "complicity in an attempt at extortion and participation in a criminal organization". How did Deschamps deal with this history? "I don't want to go into details, but there were some steps that had to be done beforehand," he said the other day. "That stays between him and me."

    On Tuesday evening, in the friendly against Bulgaria, Deschamps came on for Benzema, by the way, Olivier Giroud. In doing so, he involuntarily offered a good opportunity to point out the risk of the return campaign. A year ago Benzema made fun of Giroud on his Instagram channel. “You don't confuse Formula 1 with go-karting,” he said when comparing himself with his compatriot. Following the Bulgaria game, Giroud also complained that he was not being played often enough - what Kylian Mbappé, it says in the L'Equipe, was so annoying that he allegedly wanted to march into the press conference and respond to it.

    One could now ask in horror: what is Deschamps doing there? The answer is obvious: he has nominated a striker who, with his skills, can become the tournament's top scorer. And he stuck to the coach's belief that standing still automatically leads to regression. With Benzema in the team, Deschamps cannot guarantee progress, but can rule out standstill.