55 players and a three-pronged reading: Zidane adopts a special approach to selecting the France squad
Zinedine Zidane names his first France squad this Friday evening, with Les Bleus preparing for four UEFA Nations League fixtures.
According to Foot Mercato, the French coach used the long weeks of preparation to track players closely, following a particular method.
Zidane has not overhauled the way the preliminary squad takes shape. A first list was drawn up featuring 55 players, five names per position, but his staff also stepped up their monitoring of the less high-profile names.
Roles were shared out to get the job done, according to L'Équipe. Fabien Barthez took charge of the goalkeepers, appearing in Toulouse for example, while players in the other positions came under a double, and sometimes even triple, reading.
David Bettoni, Zidane's loyal assistant, brought his coaching experience to the table. Stéphane Blanc leaned more towards tracking and scouting, his primary specialism, and the two form a highly complementary pairing after six years working together at Real Madrid.
French players were not the only focus of Blanc's monitoring. His work also let him scout the upcoming opponents of Les Bleus, with Turkey, Belgium and Italy all on the Nations League programme.
From there, the staff set up a regular system for following their targets. Zidane and his assistants met every two weeks to weigh up the various observations and decide which players needed special attention.
The newspaper reports that Adrien Truffert was watched twice from the stands during his appearances with Bournemouth. Lucas Da Cunha, who made a striking start to the season with Como, also caught the eye.
New video analyst Fred Tabet tracked players on a regular basis too. Bettoni, Zidane's first assistant, took on Germany and Italy in particular, while Blanc focused on France and a number of other competitions, and Tabet mainly followed England and Spain.
This set-up also aims to avoid judging a player on a single impression. Every three months the monitoring zones rotate, so that different members of the staff take on the scouting of players who are candidates for the national team during the season.
Multiple readings, then, before the final call. Zidane himself has not travelled much so far, spotted only at the Bollaert stadium for the French Super Cup between Lens and Paris Saint-Germain. His status as a global icon can make organising trips difficult, according to the newspaper. Now the wait begins for the fruit of this work in Zidane's first squad, which will reveal the new faces who have booked a place in the plans of the 1998 world champion.
