EXCLUSIVE | Franck Leboeuf: ‘Dembélé has an inferiority complex when it comes to Mbappé’ | OneFootball

Ahead of France’s first appearance at the World Cup, Get French Football News spoke exclusively to World Cup winner Franck Leboeuf.

In this first of a four-part interview, Franck tries to convince us not to be worried for les Bleus, despite some similarities with the 2002 World Cup.

I need you to reassure me a little. Because I’m worried. I’m seeing too many similarities with the 2002 World Cup.

So am I!

There is the first match against Senegal, there is everyone talking about France having the best attack in the world. Give me some reasons not to be too afraid.

So, first of all, I’m going to add a little layer for you. We lost the penultimate warm-up match, against Belgium, 2-1 in 2002, like we lost to the Ivory Coast last week. And then we won the last match against South Korea, like we did last week against Northern Ireland. So yes, if we look at it that way the signs are not good.

But I want to believe that France has a desire for revenge for the final lost to Argentina last time. I think we have to be optimistic because a nation that, since 1998, has played four World Cup finals out of seven is still one of the favourites, along with Spain and maybe Portugal.

There is also Didier Deschamps who will want to go out on a high and will try to put out the best team. We have question marks over our midfield, we have question marks over our defenders. Before it was the centre-backs but I think that with William Saliba and Dayot Upamecano we’re still quite strong and Maxence Lacroix too, can do a job. At full back, between the Hernandez brothers and Lucas Digne, and Jules Koundé on the other side, it’s not very reassuring, but these are still players who play in big clubs, who know their trade, who have experience. Then with the guys in midfield like Adrien Rabiot, Aurélien Tchouameni, N’Golo Kanté, Manu Koné, I think that there is real quality.  

Then up front, I’m very happy that it looks like Michael Olise is going to stay on the right wing, after everyone said he was going to play at 10, but that’s really his best position. Apart from Ousmane Dembélé who I think really needs to let himself go – I feel like he has an inferiority complex when it comes to Kylian Mbappé, starting from when he was at Paris Saint-Germain with him – I think there are real reasons to feel OK – we can see that Desiré Doué is in great form, playing well, getting assists. Olise it goes without saying – hat-trick, scoring goals. All of that builds confidence. This was not the case in 2002, with Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka and David Trezeguet, who didn’t score in the warm-up games.

So I think that this team, especially compared to many of the others, is still far superior. Even our B team beat Brazil [in March] and yet Brazil – OK, there’s the midfield with Casemiro, Lucas Paquetá and Bruno Guimarães – but in defence they’re very strong, up front they’re very strong and they’re not even being talked about as one of the favourites. So I think that we are we are very much above many teams, except maybe Spain and let’s say Portugal and England.

Franck Leboeuf was speaking exclusively to Get French Football News courtesy of BetVictor Online Casino

GFFN | Jeremy Smith