They went from Waterloo to Solferino in a stunning second half. In Turin, the Blues won a new battle against Belgium (3-2), in the semi-final of this second edition of the League of Nations, Thursday, October 7. The competition still smells a little new, but the victory remains beautiful and in a different register from this semi-final of the World Cup won (1-0) against these same “Red Devils” in 2018. It also opens the way to victory. ‘a new title against Spain on Sunday in Milan.
In St. Petersburg, the future world champions had given a lesson in resilience and efficiency (1-0), perceived hot as a small robbery between neighbors by their opponents. This time, the France team was in the pursuit race with stunts and screeching of tires in a little crowded Juventus Stadium, between health gauge and relative interest of the Turinese. “At 2-0, not many people at half-time thought it was possible apart from me”, admits Didier Deschamps at the wheel of a team overwhelmed by the malice of Yannick Carrasco (37e) and the power of Romelu Lukaku (41e).
After a good start, his players had “Too remote and too much left the initiative” to their opponents to the taste of the coach. At that time, the papers were already well advanced with the first definitive and inevitably a little cruel findings. We should probably read that Kevin de Bruyne had distributed the balloons in a three-piece suit, that Lukaku had the effect of an adult in the middle of a defense of frightened children or that this diagram in 3-4-3 hardly seemed less baroque than if Deschamps had emerged from his tactical grimoire 2-3-5, proposed in 1904 during the very first France-Belgium (3-3).
Mbappé took his responsibilities
Because Hugo Lloris and his partners “Had nothing more to lose”, that the Belgians “Maybe thought a little too much about the final” and fired “Emotional” to the chagrin of their coach, Roberto Martinez, the curves crossed to allow a “Exploit”, according to Lloris. Word is not oversold against the first nation in the FIFA rankings. Champion of continuous testing (but decidedly angry with the final exam), Belgium had this semi-final in hand for an hour.
And then, she gave way to this blue revolt embodied by Kylian Mbappé. In the France team, the striker does not do everything well, but he does a lot. For its 50e selection at 22, the Parisian offered the decisive pass to Karim Benzema for the goal of hope (62e), before assuming his responsibilities seven minutes later by equalizing from the penalty spot with a strike in the top corner. The choice owes nothing to chance. If the usual attendant – Benzema in this case – has passed his turn, it is also to allow his partner to heal the memory of this missed shot on goal against Switzerland at the Euro.
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