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2022 FIFA World Cup

France Will Do ‘Everything Humanly Possible’ To Stop Messi From Winning The World Cup – Deschamps

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France Will Do 'Everything Humanly Possible' To Stop Messi From Winning The World Cup - Deschamps

France coach Didier Deschamps says France will be doing “everything humanly possible” to prevent Lionel Messi from winning his first World Cup in Qatar.

Deschamps is preparing to lead France to back-to-back World Cup triumphs, which will only happen if they defeat Argentina on sunday.

France earned their place in the World Cup final following a 2-0 win over tournament underdogs, Morocco, with goals from Theo Hernandez and Randal Kolo Muani giving the reigning champions’ victory.

Asked about Argentina’s pursuit of their third World Cup, with Messi hoping to emulate Diego Maradona in lifting the trophy.

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‘We will do everything humanly possible for that not to happen,’ Deschamps told BeIN Sport in a post-match interview. ‘At the end of the match, someone is getting a third star on their shirt.’

Deschamps also went further to discuss the difference between the current Argentina side and the one his France side overcame four years ago in Russia.

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France earned a 4-3 win over Argentina in the last 16 in 2018, en route to lifting the World Cup for the second time.

‘He [Messi] actually played as a center-forward against us, which caught us by surprise four years ago,’ Deschamps said. ‘Whereas now he is in tandem, just in behind the center-forward, he is picking up the ball a lot and he is running with it and looking in great form.

‘He is one of the best players in the world and he has shown that, so of course, we are going to try and counter Messi’s threat and stop him influencing the game and Argentina will try and stop the influence of some of my players.

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‘This Argentina side is different to the one we played four years ago.

‘We have two sides with a great deal of quality and it will be up to key players to make a difference, maybe the team that makes fewest mistakes will win the game.’

France previously won the World Cup in 1998 and 2018 – while Argentina won football’s ultimate prize in 1978 and 1986.

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The Les Bleus have seen their plans disrupted by a sickness outbreak in their squad.

Deschamps has added on having Dayot Upamecano and Adrien Rabiot back at his disposal on Sunday: “Dayot will be fit. He will be back.

Since Saturday he has not been very well for about three days. He got back to training a bit last night. But he had a fever and that impacted his strength.

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Given the tough match we had (a semi-final against Morocco), I decided not to play him and play (Ibrahima) Konate instead, because I know that he has already shown he’s good enough to play at that level.

Adrien was sick and wasn’t well enough this afternoon and stayed in the hotel. Now we have three days to rest he should be better and available for Sunday.”

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