A chess player with the mind of a maestro… Olisse breaks the boredom of France

Like the opening line of the novel “The Stranger” by the French writer Albert Camus. “France played today. Or maybe yesterday. I can’t be sure.” Perhaps there is no sentence that can better summarize the state of the French national team in recent years. The gap between the romantic expectations imposed by the names of the players and the practical reality presented by the team on the field never ceases to amaze. France, one way or another, appears stronger on paper with each new tournament.

The talent is flowing at an astonishing rate and the golden generations are intertwined in such a way that any squad could be capable of competing for the title. As coach Didier Deschamps prepares for the 2026 World Cup, his third and final in charge of France, the second team he fielded in a friendly against Colombia last March looked like they could be the tournament’s second-best team. But the problem is that the reality of France under the leadership of Deschamps is often completely different from the image drawn on paper. This team, despite reaching the finals of the World Cup twice in a row, developed a reputation for providing as little as possible with the best available opportunities, often seeming closer to a team that relies on hard work and tactical discipline than a group of stars that provide the football that the public expects from these names.

This was the introduction to journalist James Horncastle’s report on the site The Athletic After the France-Senegal match, he asked an outstanding question. How can a team that includes so much talent, especially on the offensive line, sometimes underperform?