Saturday evening, Toulouse and La Rochelle will compete for the title of French rugby champion at the Stade de France. A meeting organized two days before France-Greece on this same lawn. Something to worry about Didier Deschamps.
It is often said that the grass is greener elsewhere but Didier Deschamps hopes quite the opposite for the French team. Friday night, his Blues struggled against Gibraltar and the lawn was no stranger to it at all. The dry grass of the Algarve stadium in Faro did not help the French team to set up a fast game. Enough to allow the opposing bloc to more easily contain the French offensives and sometimes tip the match into boredom. But, Deschamps is not necessarily at the end of his troubles concerning the lawns trodden by the French team in this month of June.
Deschamps begs the gardeners of the Stade de France
Indeed, the Blues must receive Greece on Monday at the Stade de France for their last match of the season. If the Dionysian lawn is not as bad as that of Faro, it will be in demand this weekend. This Saturday must take place the final of the Top 14 between Toulouse and La Rochelle in this same Stade de France. A rugby match that may well alter the quality of the field. Didier Deschamps has been aware of this for a while but he tried to anticipate this problem upstream with the gardeners so that his French team was not penalized on Monday.
🇬🇧 After the victory against Gibraltar (0-3) on Friday, the coach of Les Bleus Didier Deschamps did not hide his concern about the state of the Stade de France pitch for Monday’s match against Greece, 48 hours later the Top 14 finalhttps://t.co/2zHMRLesQ8
– RMC Sport (@RMCsport) June 17, 2023
” Apparently the Stade de France is busy on Saturday… I pray for the pitch. We have obligations. There was a time when they had already had to flatten the lawn but hey it was struggling to hold. I count on the gardeners. I spoke to them at the last rally, they will do their best but only 48 hours ago. We will not be at the Stade de France on Saturday, we will do an internal session, we will be there on Sunday “, he said pessimistically at a press conference on Friday evening. No laxity is possible for France while Greece, its future opponent, is only 3 points behind it in the Group B standings.
