“I need folks to cease asking me: ‘Why haven't France received something while you're among the best groups on the earth?'” Marie-Antoinette Katoto, like all her teammates, has just one dream this summer time: to win the Euros.
To do this, although, they've to come back to phrases with a historical past of match failures with the latest one coming on the house Olympics final yr, once they have been knocked out by Brazil on the quarter-final stage. “We've got had alternatives and twice did not win it at house in France. We've got to have the humility to confess that,” admits Sakina Karchaoui, one of many crew's vice-captains, referring additionally to the 2019 World Cup on house soil, once they misplaced to the USA within the quarter-finals.
The listing of failures is so lengthy that the phrase “lastly” is added to any query about Les Bleues' probabilities. France have solely managed to achieve the semi-finals of a serious girls's competitors on three events: the 2011 World Cup, the 2012 Olympic Video games and Euro 2021. Repeated disappointments have taken a toll.
“Since we put together for tournaments a yr or two years upfront, while you arrive on the competitors and also you get eradicated rapidly, sure, sooner or later it additionally has an affect on the thoughts,” says Grace Geyoro. “It may be exhausting, particularly while you see the [quality in the] crew we've got.”
On Saturday, they begin their newest mission at Euro 2025 towards England in Zurich. It couldn't have been a harder opening, the Lionesses having the final Euros in 2022 with a coach who additionally received the earlier match, in 2019 with the Netherlands. The Dutch are additionally in France's group in Switzerland, along with Wales.
France have all the time had particular person high quality. So far as the 2000s there have been gamers similar to Louisa Nécib Cadamuro, Camille Abily, Marie-Laure Delie, Sandrine Soubeyrand and Laura Georges, earlier than the arrival of Eugénie Le Sommer and Wendie Renard. All of which begs the query: Why haven't France triumphed in a serious match.
“If we knew why France weren't profitable, I believe we'd have put issues proper by now,” says Abily, the fifth-most capped participant in Les Bleues historical past with 183 caps between 2001 and 2017. “I believe there's a bent in France to see soccer as a person sport, pondering extra about oneself earlier than fascinated with the crew. That's what's been a bit missing within the French crew.”
Grace Geyoro agrees: “We've relied lots on people, on the truth that one participant could make the distinction. Now we have to focus extra on the collective, as a result of we will solely win collectively.”
The crew has typically been shaken by inside conflicts, whether or not it's disagreements with the coach Corinne Diacre or gamers clashing similar to Kheira Hamraoui and Aminata Diallo in 2021.
Elise Bussaglia, who earned 192 caps between 2003 and 2019, says: “The group hasn't all the time coped properly, for numerous causes. And it's true that at one level it may have had a detrimental impact on our outcomes.” One of many areas of rigidity was the disconnect between the gamers from Lyon, who have been professionals on the time, and people from Juvisy (later Paris FC) and Paris Saint-Germain, who have been nonetheless semi-professional.
The present Chelsea head coach, Sonia Bompastor, touches on the topic in her ebook Une vie de foot, which was revealed this yr, writing: “We weren't on the identical wavelength in any respect, and we didn't have the identical conception of what it meant to be a footballer. For me, dropping a match was the top of the world; not for them.”
Abily, who's Bompastor's assistant at Chelsea, insists that in her day, the crew “didn't realise” the standard it had. “I keep in mind that once we certified for the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2011, we mentioned to ourselves: ‘Wow! That's nice, we're right here, we've certified!”
Bussaglia, who completed fourth with France on the 2011 World Cup and the next yr's Olympics, provides: “There are occasions when the French crew ought to have at the very least received a medal, if not the title, and it didn't occur. There must be a bit extra of a profitable tradition. Nevertheless it's not simply the federation, it's everybody: the gamers, the employees, the followers, everybody. Round this French crew, there's nonetheless not sufficient need to win.”
Bompastor has additionally spoken in regards to the lack of curiosity from the French FA within the girls's crew previously. “No person gave a rattling in regards to the French girls's crew,” she wrote in her ebook. “We used to go and see Noël Le Graët, the president of the federation, to clarify to him that the rationale Lyon have been European champions was as a result of we'd put sure processes in place, and never as a result of we'd gone off to summer time camps with a singing coach [referring to Bruno Bini, Les Bleues coach from 2007 to 2013 who wrote songs for the players]. The one factor that mattered to him was our reputation score and our good picture.”
There was a sense by some gamers that the French FA was utilizing the ladies's crew to revive its status after the catastrophic 2010 World Cup when the lads's crew went on strike and refused to coach by staying on the crew bus.
A scarcity of ambition is now not true right this moment, says Eric Blahic, who was assistant coach to Corinne Diacre after which Hervé Renard (2023-24) and was delighted to see the latter finish the “well-known semi-final complicated”. “For years, the women have been advised that they needed to be within the sem-finals,” he says. “That doesn't imply something. Third or fourth shouldn't be the identical factor. It's a must to say: the target is the ultimate.”
He additionally rejects the concept that France have did not go all the best way due to a psychological block. “In 1982, when the French males's crew performed within the semi-final in Seville, once we led 3-1 and ended up being eradicated, folks have been already saying that it was psychological issues. If that's all it was, the federation would have taken motion a very long time in the past.”
Laurent Bonadei was appointed as Renard's successor in August 2024 and since then a full-time psychological efficiency coach, Thomas Sammut, has been a part of the crew “to interrupt this glass ceiling”. He has made different modifications too, dropping three key gamers – Le Sommer, Renard and Kenza Dali – simply earlier than the Euros, saying that “if it doesn't work it's important to strive one thing new”.
He prefers to seek advice from France as “outsiders” moderately than favourites, regardless of having received their eight final video games going into the match. “Confidence is nice for growing our recreation, however overconfidence is the lure that awaits us,” warns Bonadei.
In Switzerland there's unlikely to be overconfidence as France should battle towards not solely their opponents, however their previous too.
