In football too, France won this Friday! But nothing is yet done for an Olympic medal. Thierry Henry’s Les Bleus emerged victorious from their quarter-final against Argentina (1-0) and have reached the last four of the men’s football tournament at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. They will face Egypt in the semi-finals next Monday (9 p.m.) at the Groupama Stadium, in the suburbs of Lyon, just after the first match between Morocco and Spain. With the dream of a gold medal to be won at the Parc des Princes four days later.
This France-Argentina clash was played in a delirious Bordeaux stadium, with the Aquitaine crowd booing the Argentinian anthem and Javier Mascherano’s players. The clash was bound to be tense, two weeks after the absolutely racist chant sung by Lionel Messi’s teammates after their Copa América victory. Alexandre Lacazette and his teammates were lucky to open the scoring right away, with a great header from Jean-Philippe Mateta at the near post, following a corner from Michael Olise (5th).
A France-Argentina that goes wrong!
The Argentinians gradually dominated the match, but Julian Alvarez, future OL player Thiago Almada and Giuliano Simeone were never able to break the defense. Loïc Badé-Castello Lukeba and Guillaume Restes, in goal, made the necessary saves. The entire Matmut Atlantique exploded with joy at a second goal scored by Michael Olise (84th), but the video assistant reported a French foul to the central referee, who decided to cancel the goal.
After 12 minutes of added time, the whistle triggered a general brawl. On the images, we see Enzo Millot being taken to task by Argentinian players, the staff of the Blues trying to push them back, the referee of the game and Rayan Cherki reasoning with Millot, then Nicolas Otamendi and Lucas Beltran trying to hit the midfielder trained at AS Monaco. The latter, who had been the starter for “Titi” Henry since the beginning, was visibly given a red card, as the French coach regretted on France 3 afterwards.
