Johannesburg – Both sides desperately need the points on Sunday, as France Under-23s meet South Africa Under-23s in Group A of the Olympic football competition, in Saitama, in Japan, reports sportsmole.co.uk
Neither coach has a full-strength squad to work with, as the South Africans have been hit by a virus outbreak which forced the team to isolate before their opening defeat to Japan, while Les Bleus are at best a third-string selection of unproven hopefuls and declining veterans.
Pessimism surrounding France’s hopes of reaching the latter stages of this delayed Tokyo 2020 tournament was already widespread, but their collapse in the second half of Thursday’s 4-1 defeat to Mexico laid bare the challenge ahead for a hastily assembled squad.
CONCACAF qualifying winners Mexico took the lead less than two minutes after the break at the Tokyo Stadium, before doubling their advantage in the 55th minute, and though 35-year-old captain Andre-Pierre Gignac, whose last game for the French national team was the Euro 2016 final loss to Portugal – pulled a goal back from the spot, El Tri later added two more for the London 2012 champions.
Sylvain Ripoll’s team now face a tough task to progress from Group A – with a top-two finish required to make the quarter-finals – so will see victory over crisis-hit South Africa as an absolute must on Sunday.
While France’s gifted young generation has been largely left back at home – as some were on duty at Euro 2020 and others have been summarily withdrawn by their club sides – the former Lorient coach has been forced to draw from Ligue 1’s more modest sides for personnel.
As a result, though veteran striker Gignac and his new teammate at Mexico’s Tigres UNAL, Florian Thauvin, have been called in as overage players, the squad is undoubtedly not a true reflection of the abundant talent available to the reigning world champions.
Ripoll, who could not lead Les Bleuets to the final of either the 2019 or 2021 European Under-21 Championships, now has it all to do if his men are to achieve the sort of success which has been more elusive to the national team at the Olympics than in other major tournaments.
In fact, the only gold medal in France’s long and illustrious history came at the 1984 event and they last qualified in 1996 – perhaps demonstrating their football administrators’ lack of love for the global Games.
While the French team’s start to their campaign was far from ideal, Sunday’s opponents South Africa endured a nightmarish introduction to this highly unusual edition of the Olympics.
Bizarrely, head coach David Notoane complained that he had seen people running away from members of his team, after they emerged from an enforced period of isolation following positive COVID-19 tests for two players and a video analyst last weekend.
With the vast majority of his playing staff quarantining in the build-up to their tournament opener against hosts Japan, perhaps South Africa were fortunate to eventually lose only 1-0, as a result of Takefusa Kubo’s second-half goal. Indeed, despite their lack of preparation time, Notoane’s young squad held out resolutely until the Real Madrid winger fizzed a shot just inside the far post in the 71st minute.
Despite the defeat, after missing two training sessions with players confined to their rooms, the former Under-20 national team boss praised his players for their efforts against the odds.
Having qualified through the Africa Under-23s Cup of Nations nearly two years ago – where they were defeated in the semi-finals; still enough to earn one of the continent’s four available spots – South Africa’s only other result of the calendar year so far saw them fall to a 3-0 friendly defeat against Egypt Under-23s last month.
Now they simply must avoid a third straight defeat to have any chance of springing a surprise and meeting Mexico in their final group game still with hope of making the last eight.
– sportsmole.co.uk
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