French team: the confessions of Bradley Barcola on his first steps

Like Samuel Umtiti 8 years ago, Bradley Barcola will showcase his status as a French international during a Euro. “Surprise”, without being one, given his season at PSG, the player trained at OL does not, however, start in the shoes of a starter, but the main thing is elsewhere for a prospective player, there has a year and a half, to be loaned to Switzerland. On Wednesday, alongside his club teammates, Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé and Warren Zaire-Emery, Barcola was able to discover the historic stronghold of the Blues, Clairefontaine. The opportunity to make your mark in a group that is immediately benevolent towards you.

“My first steps? It went very well, it’s a pride to come here, everything is going well, I was very well received and I’m very happy. It’s true that I saw the castle from the outside before, and now, from the front. It’s nice. If I am here, it is because I deserve it, I will approach this calmly”, smiled the 21-year-old winger, present at a press conference this Saturday. Like many, he was also exposed to the inside videos of Les Bleus, in order to immerse himself in the atmosphere of the group: “I often watched the videos to see the atmosphere in the French team, and I really wasn’t surprised: a very good atmosphere, everyone is really happy to be there. »

Hazing in the crosshairs

Like every new French international, Bradley Barcola will obviously be entitled to his famous musical hazing. Last November, his youngest son Warren Zaire-Emery opted for the title “O’Kartier c’est la hess” by the rap group 4Keus. It’s up to Barcola to make the right choice: “I haven’t had the right to hazing yet”, he laughed at a press conference. Regarding his first discussions with his coach Didier Deschamps, Barcola also revealed, unsurprisingly, that he expected the same thing from him as at PSG: “the coach told me to bring speed, technique, madness, like in a club.”

Ibrahima Konaté, for his part, praised Barcola’s trajectory and also invited him to do what he knew how to do best on the pitch: “I’m very happy for him. He received a lot of criticism at the start of the season, he was able to silence them through his performances. I already saw his matches in Lyon. He is making progress. He must bring his qualities to the collective.” Asked to draw a parallel between the France Espoirs team, with whom he has 12 caps (4 goals), and the A, Barcola was categorical: “a difference ? Yes, there is still a very big difference: the technical level, there are very few ball losses even if we have only had two training sessions. Then the demands and rigor of the players are not the same here”, he analyzed. It’s up to him to dig into the right drawers to find a place for himself from now on.