When will the first title come? The question continues to haunt French women’s football, reappearing after every disappointment and before each major tournament. The long-awaited breakthrough remains elusive. “It’s always on our minds,” former head coach of the French women’s national team Hervé Renard admitted to Le Monde. “The media, you contribute to it… and rightfully so. But it’s not easy to ignore that dimension.” Renard spoke from experience, having led Les Bleues at the 2023 World Cup and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Before heading to Switzerland for the European Championship, the French players were once again confronted with this recurring theme. At both the World Cup and the Olympics, their campaigns ended at the quarter-final stage. This disappointing pattern has repeated itself seven times in the last eight major international tournaments since 2013 (Euros, World Cups and Olympic Games). Facing Germany on Saturday, July 18, in Basel, the French side has a chance to book their place in the final four – a stage they have reached only once in the past 12 years, at the 2022 tournament in England.
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