Didier Deschamps believes William Saliba was ‘more ready’ for France’s Euro 2024 clash with Austria than Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate.
Despite being a key part of the Arsenal side that has finished second only to Manchester City in each of the last two Premier League seasons, Saliba has often struggled for regular starts at international level.
However, the 23-year-old was named alongside Bayern Munich’s Dayot Upamecano in a shock centre-back pairing for France’s opening group stage fixture with Austria on Monday — with the latter also facing criticism for his club performances last season.
The decision from Deschamps proved to be the correct one, with France keeping a clean sheet in a 1-0 win, while Saliba and Upamecano combined to make 12 clearances and nine recoveries, while being dribbled past just once between them.
Deschamps explains centre-back decision-making
Despite a strong defensive display, Deschamps was still questioned regarding the absence of Konate in the starting XI, with the 25-year-old coming off a season with Liverpool in which he featured 37 times across all competitions.
But Deschamps — who has previously claimed Saliba does things he ‘doesn’t like’ — backed his decision and revealed he thought Saliba was ‘more ready’ for the challenge than Konate.
“If I decided to play William Saliba, it is because I thought he was more ready than Konaté for such a match. But I don’t want to lose anyone either, we will need everyone,” Deschamps told reports (via Get French Football News).
“They (Saliba and Upamecano) have 120 minutes together for the France national team, it’s not a lot, but they have this ability to be very solid in one-on-one [situations], even if there were some clearances that they could improve on, they exuded a lot of strength and calmness. We needed that against such an opponent.”
France face a difficult task in their next Group D match as they face the Netherlands in Leipzig on Friday.
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