The French women’s football team is aiming for a place in the quarter-finals of the World Cup against Morocco, a duel as unexpected as it is unbalanced, but full of emotions for several actresses of the meeting which will be held this Tuesday August 7 (1:00 p.m.) in Adelaide. In the coolness of South Australia, the thermometer risks dropping below ten degrees at match time, but the air at Hindmarsch Stadium will be warmed by shared memories. Those of Hervé Renard with the Moroccan selection, which he led in men’s between 2016 and 2019. Those of Reynald Pedros, the Moroccan coach, with the six Bleues he worked with during his two seasons at the head of Lyons (2017-2019).
“We assume our status”
Those of several players from both teams, friends in life and reunited for an evening on the other side of the world. In the evocative and so particular context which surrounds the meeting, one would almost forget the capital stake of this match: a ticket for the “top 8” of the tournament, a summit against co-organizer Australia, this Saturday in Brisbane. “I have wonderful memories of my time in Morocco. But let’s get to football. Even when we play a game with friends, we do it to win it,” warned Hervé Renard, refusing to give in to emotion.
Ultra-favorites, the France of Wendie Renard and Eugénie Le Sommer bears all the pressure on their shoulders, against the lowest ranked nation of the 8th (72nd in Fifa). In the Adelaide stadium, the smallest of the World (less than 14,000 seats), an elimination would be an affront and would destroy all the promises made by Hervé Renard, appointed in April at the head of the Blue.
“We are favourites, we are not going to hide it. We have much more experience than Morocco in major competition, it is up to us to use that. We assume our status, but we know that the status of favorite means nothing say in football”, warns Le Sommer, scorer in hens against Brazil (2-1), a “reference match” which the Blue want to use.
On the other side, Morocco has already succeeded in its competition, the first World Cup in its history, by managing to overtake Germany in Group H, despite an inaugural slap against the Germans (6-0). With a team combining local players from AS FAR (Rabat), the main women’s club in the country, and recently convinced binationals, the Atlas Lionesses are counting on a tournament full of surprises, after the successive eliminations of Canada, Germany and the United States.
Links between the two countries
“I am French and my staff is French. But my heart is Moroccan. Lyons. On the other hand, Hervé Renard also revives his memories of the 2018 World Cup disputed with the Moroccan men’s selection, one of the stages of his journey as a globetrotter which now leads him in search of a first world star for the Blues.
Like France-Morocco in December, this duel in women’s football, only the second in history, is part of a diplomatic context currently tense between Rabat and Paris. It also takes on a particular dimension for the hundreds of thousands of dual nationals living in France, suggesting a peak in audience despite the time difference. Blue defender Sakina Karchaoui, born in France to Moroccan parents, alone symbolizes this unique environment. “We know the place that Morocco has in our family, just like France,” she says. “It’s going to be a match full of emotions.”