French fans’ expectations of their national team had been at an all-time high: a semi-final on Bastille Day, Kylian Mbappé a hero, a squad unbeaten. Across the country, bars had been packed with viewers spilling on to pavements, ready to crack open the fireworks ahead of hopes for the final.
But the night was unexpectedly subdued, streets cleared early. On Wednesday morning, the French media were still digesting the disappointment of defeat in a World Cup semi-final, praising Spain’s performance in Texas while struggling to comprehend Les Bleus’ fall from a high.
“Demolished” headlined the print edition of the French sports paper L’Équipe on its match report. France’s World Cup adventure “deserved more than this disaster of a game, this disaster of strategy and emotions”, wrote Vincent Duluc. He said France could not even complain about losing because of the “feeling of barely really having played, and of betraying the magic of this American dream”.
Duluc felt the team had been physically not up to it, that there were technical mistakes and, above all, the players had appeared “mentally sunk by the emotional dimension of the match”.
After the French team had been placed on the highest pedestal for weeks by fans back home, Le Monde’s correspondent Alexandre Lemarié was saddened. “The fall to earth is as brutal as it is painful,” the paper wrote. It was a “cruel disappointment”, particularly given the team’s performance up to now: “A collective failure.”
This semi-final would be hard to forget for all the wrong reasons, wrote the correspondent for the regional northern paper, La Voix du Nord, saying it would “remain a nightmare”. Ouest France headlined its front page with “The end of the American dream” over a picture of Mbappé with his head in his hand. “They fell from very, very high,” was written in Libération.
In Le Figaro, Baptiste Desprez was disheartened but recognised Spain’s skill. “Les Bleus, stifled, pummelled and incapable of three passes despite their promise from the start of the competition, faced players stronger than them,” he wrote. “It’s sad. Infuriating. But that’s sport. The strongest won.”