Journal des Bleus: Dembele and his fear of cats, Marcus Thuram spared and sent a complaint

In just two short days, it will be time to take out the flags, scarves and T-shirts. It will be 16:00 in France, 18:00 in Doha and a few degrees Celsius higher when France starts their round of 16 against Poland. Didier Deschamps’ wards started preparing for this match this Thursday, the day after the hairdressers’ defeat (1:0) from Tunisia. Here’s what to remember from that day.

Dembele doesn’t like cats at all

The anecdote was made public by Randal Kolo Muani this Thursday at a press conference. A journalist has just asked him if he can quote a moment, an episode from the life of this group in Qatar, which he will remember for a long time. The former Nantes striker spontaneously said: “Ousmane is afraid of cats. There are cats roaming the hotel and when we eat outside, Usman gets scared. This is what makes everyone laugh a little. »

Ousmane Dembele, the author of a very successful start to the World Cup, also does a lot of good in the atmosphere of this team. Even if sometimes at his expense.

Markus Thuram spared again

Stunt double Olivier Giroud has yet to fully recover from these little health worries. On Wednesday, a few hours before the match against Tunisia, we learned that he could not start due to stomach pains. He clearly didn’t recover on Thursday as he had a light session again.

He started by jogging with those who played the day before, then quickly moved on to treatments and stretching. It wasn’t until then that he raced high intensity with Cyril Moyne but didn’t touch the ball. The one-day subs for their part included technical drills and shortened games with assistant Guy Stéphane before ending up with punches and stretches.

Complaint disappeared

Promise kept. The FFF asked FIFA to explain the reason why Antoine Griezmann was denied a stoppage time goal against Tunisia. The Fed notes that VAR was applied “after the restart of play and after the end of the match,” which is contrary to the protocol for using this technology, the federal source said in an explanation.

When questioned by AFP on Wednesday evening and Thursday, FIFA made no response to this incredible situation. A hypothetical modification of the final result will not change the classification of Group D: Tunisia will be eliminated in both cases, while France will face Poland anyway. On the other hand, the FFF may feel offended by the world rankings: a loss to Tunisia would see France lose around 38 points, putting them at risk from fifth-ranked England ahead of the World Cup. The draw would be less problematic if this classification were used to designate seeds for several international competitions.

Following this glitch, TF1 apologized to its viewers for the signal interruption, but blamed the International Football Federation for the failure.