• The France team made an almost perfect copy Tuesday night by winning (1-0) in Munich for their first match of the Euro. 

  • The rare questions that we had before the start of the competition are gently disappearing to give way only to hopes, big, big hopes. 

  • We take stock before Saturday's match against Hungary which could already be synonymous with qualifying in 8th for the Blues. 

That's practical, we already have the answer to the question we asked ourselves in our last podcast.

While we wondered before the start of the Euro if we were not suffering from an acute inflammation of the ankles, given the indecent gear available to the coach of the France team this year, the very beautiful victory against the Mannschaft on Tuesday evening provided a first element of the answer: ABSOLUTELY NOT !!!

We then remember this premonition of our friend Klauss, we met when we arrived at Munich airport: “You're going to kick our ass”.

Well, if the final score hardly reflects the show of strength of the Blues in the lair of Bayern, there is no lack of reasons to firmly believe in this team.

See instead.

Ah, here are the golgoths of Russia (+ Kimpembe)

Let's face it, this was the big question of the last two weeks of preparation: would the defense of the France team be able to compare with the trio banned at least 18 Griezmann-Benzema-Mbappé. It is clear that yes, it can. However, it was not insulting him to think that. With a Varane-Kimpembe hinge that had never been proven in a final phase, a Real defender coming out of a not really reassuring season and a Presko whose passenger air holes we know in a match, good ...

Without speaking of the full-backs, Pavard and Hernandez, heroic in Russia but appeared less in leg during the preparation of Clairefontaine, there was something to worry about.

Deschamps, he never doubted.

“I know what they are capable of doing, I had no worries, he said in conf after the match.

Certainly we were not put in difficulty [during the preparation] but we were in the training sessions, it allowed some things to be corrected.

I know we are not going to win games by defending, but we have that ability.

"

An attacking trio that goes (also) to charcoal

During the preparation phase, the return of KB9 obliges, it was almost exclusively a question of the magico trio at a press conference. The day after this first success against Germany, surprisingly, that's not what we want to talk about. Or rather if, but in a register that we had not seen coming. If the three offensives have of course shown a certain appetite for playing together in attack, they have also been able to make themselves available to their partners when it comes to doing the dirty defensive work.

What did not escape the coach at the end of the match.

"They could have scored goals today but they too contributed and allowed the team to defend well," said DD.

The three, I don't want to separate them from the other seven.

They made themselves available to the collective to allow us to defend very well.

“Indeed, in the rare moments when the Blues had to unite to prevent the Germans from coming back, Griezmann and Mbappé took their share of the job.

It is not insignificant if the word that kept coming back to the players' mouths was “solidarity”.

The Duke on a mission

Didier Deschamps proved us wrong on Tuesday evening by preferring Adrien Rabiot to Corentin Tolisso, on whom we had bet our woolen socks for a place of titu in the middle of three, alongside the irremovable Kanté and Pogba. It took him well since the former Parisian delivered a tough match in all areas of the game. Here the foot that drags at the right time to scratch the ball in the feet of the German attackers, there the calm and technical mastery for get out of pressing in small spaces, without forgetting this capacity for projection which once knew how to get the Parc des Princes up and which we had almost ended up forgetting.

Too bad he did not have the lucidity to find Grizou full axis during his fantastic ride concluded on the post of Neuer.

But other than that, the Duke blew us away.

Not that we suddenly took him for a pipe, let's stay serious for two minutes, just that what he had shown up until then during training at Clairefontaine did not foreshadow such a transformation.

And that's just the start!

The VAR of history is formal, never a team, as strong as it is, has been able to give the full measure of its means from the first match of a final phase of great international competition.

It takes time both to digest the preparation, which in the case of the Blues was very intense, and to get used to the rhythm of high (even very high, like Tuesday) matches again.

This is what they told us after the match.

Benjamin Pavard: “We feel good physically and I think we will gain momentum as the competition progresses.

It bodes well for the future ”.

Who are you saying that to !

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