2023 World Cup – A return of “premium” for the Blues against Namibia

To whom, to what, do we owe that shortly before the start of the World Cup, Fabien Galthié suddenly decided to “put in parentheses” the term premium that he himself introduced at the start of his mandate? Did he think that at the precise moment when the selection was preparing to embrace “the mission of a lifetime”, the France group needed a cohesion that could sooner or later have been damaged by a micro-society segmented between “reservists” and “first choices”, since premium anglicism obviously has many equivalents in Larousse? Perhaps… But was “Galette” really right to embarrass himself with such coquetry? In fact, is not a group of human beings by nature a disparate edifice, endowed with large and small, loud-mouthed and chilly, standard-bearers and simple soldiers, strong and less strong? , Premium and second knives, in short?

And Maxime Lucu, Dorian Aldegheri or Arthur Vincent, to speak only of them, do they really need us to cast a modest veil over their condition within the France group to understand that there is in fact more stronger than them within the team? Obviously, no. And whatever the oratorical precautions taken by one or the other, in 2023 there will be “first choices” as there have always been in a highly hierarchical, competitive whole, such as a sports club, when it goes without saying that a “finisher” or a “reinforcement”, whatever you want to call them, will always have a very difficult time being only considered by others as someone else’s “replacement”… Because such is the world, Raymonde…

Will they make people unhappy?

If Galthié therefore indeed wanted to bury the premiums a few weeks ago, they nevertheless reminded him of their existence Thursday evening, during the match against Uruguay. Because never, in Lille, the reservists to whom Fabien Galthié had stuck the label of “best team of the moment”, did not play, with exceptions, to improve their condition within the France group. In doing so, this “bis” team has on the one hand made the task easier for the coach and his staff, to whom we had nevertheless promised a thousand migraines, over four years having sometimes made us believe that the tricolor tank was as wide as its South African alter ego, for example…

But the Uruguayan affair undoubtedly has another side, which we detail in this way: if in its arrow of time, the French team had planned to mix the team to face Namibia in Marseille, it suddenly revised his plans, disappointed with the performance of the “hairdressers” of Lille. Today, the big names are therefore all returning to power earlier than expected and for certain reservists of the France group (Bastien Chalureau, Yoram Moefana, Antoine Hastoy, Jean-Baptiste Gros or Baptiste Couilloud, for example), the time risks being particularly long over the next few weeks. If the premiums are aligned on Thursday evening, they will in fact also be against Italy in two weeks and then will obviously continue until a hypothetical final, scheduled for October 28 in Saint-Denis. “There will be less turnover from now on”, said Laurent Labit on Sunday morning, on this subject. Having followed the Blues during the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand, we know that it was difficult for Marc Lièvremont to manage the wounded egos of Louis Picamoles, Cédric Heymans or Romain Millo-Chluski, for example.

Ultimately, the hardest part seems to be beginning today for Fabien Galthié, who will have to play on velvet to manage competitors who he knows will hardly play for a month.: has he progressed in his management , as we seemed to believe before the World Cup started? Or, the episode of training on Sunday morning (read opposite) proves that the coach is already under pressure? We’ll know soon enough. Still, this France group, now split in two until a hypothetical World Cup final, is at a turning point in its young history…