A page turns, at a crucial moment. While the 2024 Paris Olympics are on everyone’s mind, and the French are pinning a lot of hope on the team sports teams, Sylvain Ripoll, coach of the France Espoirs team until now, has been dismissed from his duties, we learned Monday from a source with knowledge of the file. The position of the 51-year-old technician had been weakened by the elimination of Bleuets in the quarter-finals of Euro 2023 by Ukraine (3-1), on July 2.
Appointed in May 2017 at the head of the Espoirs, the former coach of Lorient certainly managed to qualify the Tricolores for three consecutive European Championships, after a long period of scarcity, but he never managed to convince despite the reservoir impressive that France has among young people, and has not won a title.
Semi-finalist of the Euro in 2019, he then lost twice in the quarter-finals (2021, 2023). During the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, he was handicapped by the refusal of most French clubs to release their players for a competition not organized by the International Football Federation.
Repeatedly extended by Noël Le Graët, the former president of the FFF, to whom he was close, Ripoll did not resist the new disillusionment of the Bleuets following a meeting with the new boss of the Federation Philippe Diallo .
