Martin Lange, edited by Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: JEAN CATUFFE / DPPI via AFP
A few months before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Thierry Henry, the coach of the French Olympic team, still hopes to be able to field the best possible team, but he comes up against, like his predecessor in 2021, a refusal from clubs to release their players.
A headache ahead for Thierry Henry? The coach of the France Espoirs team is also the one who will lead the Blues to the Paris 2024 Olympics this summer, but the former international striker has very little certainty about the composition of his future team. It can retain three players aged over 23 in the group which will take part in the Games, but for the moment, there is a blockage: the Olympics are not part of the Fifa calendar, nothing obliges the clubs to release their players, even the youngest, for the competition.
Real Madrid have already said no
Thierry Henry knows this, and he promised to meet them one by one to convince them. Some, however, seem inflexible, like Stade Rennes. “We also have to understand the clubs: we cannot undress to dress the French team,” says Florian Maurice, the technical director of the Breton team. “It’s difficult for us, we have to understand that.”
It must be said that Ligue 1 resumes barely a week after the Games, so it will be difficult to continue. Real Madrid also informed the French Football Federation that it would not release its players, and we are now thinking of Kylian Mbappé, expected to join the Madrid club this summer, despite his desire to play in the Games.
Avoid another fiasco
For the moment, only the Racing Club de Lens has promised to make its players available. His coach Franck Haise explains this decision: “As a coach, I don’t see myself saying to my player ‘no, I’ll block you’. If I had had the chance or the quality to experience this kind of event and “a coach had blocked me, it would have been a bit complicated in my opinion,” he agrees.
Other clubs will have to follow suit to avoid a new fiasco. Three years ago in Tokyo, Sylvain Ripoll, the coach at the time, suffered numerous refusals, forced to field a B or even C team. Result of the races: a pitiful elimination in the first round.