It’s the big day for Didier Deschamps: the coach of the Blues unveiled, Tuesday, May 18, his list for the Euro (which will be held from June 11 to July 11). The coach of the world champions made his announcement live on TF1 and M6, the tournament’s two French broadcasters.
The “Hard core”, Dear to the coach of the reigning world champions and vice-champions of Europe will include, around the goalkeeper and captain Hugo Lloris, the regulars Benjamin Pavard, Raphaël Varane, Lucas Hernandez, N’Golo Kanté, Paul Pogba, Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann .
But the big surprise comes from the presence of Karim Benzema in the list. The Real Madrid striker, who is coming out of a very big season in Spain under the orders of Zinedine Zidane, had not been called up for the France team since 2015 and the emergence of the “sextape” affair.
Just before Euro 2016, Mr. Benzema had also declared that Didier Deschamps had “Yielded under the pressure of a racist part of France”. A phrase that particularly touched the coach, whose house in Brittany was then tagged with the word “ racist ”. Since this episode and until this evening, Mr. Deschamps had always refused to call the attacker back.
If the media intervention of Didier Deschamps was eagerly awaited, the final list will not be sent until the 1er June, deadline set by UEFA. The championships are not over and some internationals could play in the Europa League (Villarreal-Manchester United) and Champions League (Manchester City-Chelsea) finals on May 26 and 29.
The complete list:
Guardians: Hugo Lloris, Steve Mandanda, Mike Maignan;
Defenders: Benjamin Pavard, Léo Dubois, Raphaël Varane, Kurt Zouma, Presnel Kimpembe, Clément Lenglet, Lucas Hernandez, Lucas Digne, Jules Koundé;
Environments : N’Golo Kanté, Paul Pogba, Adrien Rabiot, Corentin Tolisso, Moussa Sissoko, Thomas Lemar;
Attackers: Marcus Thuram, Kingsley Coman, Kylian Mbappé, Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud, Karim Benzema, Wissam Ben Yedder, Ousmane Dembélé.