The front page of Tuesday’s L’Equipe featured Olympique Lyonnais forward Nabil Fekir, confirming his decision to play for the country of his birth, France, over Algeria, the country where his parents were born.

Front page of L’Equipe today. Fekir has made his decision. #FRA #OL pic.twitter.com/GnS3rIsY0o

— FFW (@FrenchFtWeekly) March 10, 2015

It is wonderful news for France as Fekir follows in the footsteps of Zinedine Zidane and Karim Benzema in choosing Les Bleus over Les Verts.

In the interview, he declared that he felt French and regardless of whether or not he was able to win a place in Didier Deschamps’ squad, he had made his decision and wouldn’t change his mind.

With the speculation out of the way, all that is needed is for Deschamps to call him up for the upcoming friendlies against Brazil and Denmark at the end of March.

There is little doubt that Fekir’s performances this season would merit a place in Deschamps’s 23-man squad, but if DD was to play the 21-year-old, some changes would have to be made. What is the best formation, and where is the best position to get the best out of Fekir for France?

At the World Cup, Deschamps favoured 4-3-3, but with the movement of Valbuena, it looked more like 4-3-1-2 at times. The shape of the team is always determined by the players on the pitch, not just the formation.

For Lyon, Fekir has played as both the #10 and the strike partner to Alexandre Lacazette. In an ideal world, one would love to see DD use the same set-up, but there is no way that Karim Benzema, Antoine Griezmann and Valbuena will all miss out to keep the Lyon strike-force together.

As an interesting side note, since the last friendly against Sweden, Lacazette has more than establish himself as Ligue 1’s top striker, overtaking Andre-Pierre Gignac, so one would hope that the OL forward will be one of the first names on Deschamps’ team-sheet.

This all but guarantees a front-line of Lacazette and Benzema. It is hard to drop Valbuena from the line-up. The former Marseille man is still pulling the strings in Russia for Dynamo Moscow and has never let France down. Deschamps values loyalty over a lot of other factors; that can’t be ignored.

Fekir’s immediate future will likely be from the bench, with his obvious place as Valbuena’s replacement, or even to come off the bench to partner Lacazette…or Benzema. It is hard to see Fekir jumping straight into Deschamps’ strongest XI.

It would be to Deschamps’ benefit to try both Lacazette and Fekir together in the national team. It has worked so well for Lyon, there is no reason to suggest it won’t continue in international football. Supplemented by the ability of Valbuena, Benzema, Paul Pogba, Blaise Matuidi & co, it is hard to see how it could fail.

This is the nature of friendly matches, trying new combinations and ideas. Deschamps would be wary of bringing Fekir straight into the starting lineup, but a good 30 minutes off the bench against Brazil and maybe a start or 45 minutes against Denmark would make sense.

With the options of Griezmann and Gignac off the bench, plus the versatility of Valbuena to play wide or central, this gives DD options to mix it up. Fekir could also play wide if Deschamps wanted to play 4-2-3-1.

It’s a great problem to have, and the coach has just over a year to try different options to find the best combination. It’s not about having the best XI players on the pitch, it’s more important to have the best team.

Over the two upcoming friendlies, here are two possible midfield/attack options that Deschamps could employ:

It’s hard to argue that either would cause any side problems….and yes, Maxime Gonalons should be starting for France.