Zidane's first France squad: 23 names, five debutants and a gamble on the left flank

ZIDANE'S FIRST SQUAD: 23 NAMES, FIVE DEBUTANTS AND A GAMBLE ON THE LEFT FLANK

A turn inside two square metres

In a match where the opposing defence dropped so deep that the edge of the box all but became a wall, Lepaul received the ball in a space barely two square metres wide. He shielded it with his left hip, turned, and shot. The goal was not pretty. It was merely effective. And it is why Zinedine Zidane called him into the France squad for the first time, in a 23-man list for the Nations League window.

At another corner of that same list, Jacquet had just completed a move from Rennes to Liverpool for a reported fee of 70 million euros, roughly 80 million US dollars. Angers once paid just 150,000 euros, about 173,000 US dollars, for Lepaul. Two names, two deals, a ratio of 466 times.

Every prophecy begins with a table nobody bothers to read. This squad list is such a table. It contains no xG. No PPDA. No possession share. It contains only names, clubs, and the gaps — the names that were crossed out.

Context: a cycle closes, a list opens

Zidane took the France job after Deschamps stepped away, immediately after a World Cup. This is his first squad. The number of matches under the new regime to reference: zero. For someone who writes with data, that is the biggest blind spot in the whole story. We are reading a statement of intent, not a match report.

What can be read from that statement: 23 names; five first-time call-ups in Jacquet, Diouf, Lepaul, Da Cunha and Restes; two World Cup winners dropped in Benzema, 38, and Kante, 35; one full-back recalled in Truffert; and four fixtures waiting — away in Turkiye, away in Belgium, Italy at home, Belgium at home.

The competitive context offers a direct comparison: Germany named 44 players in the same window. France chose 23. Same calendar, two philosophies. One widens to observe as much as possible, the other narrows to define roles as sharply as possible.

Zidane summed up his philosophy in one short line: "What inspires me is the game. I want to see these players and this team playing." No formation, no diagram, no promise about results. Only a direction of view.

The left flank: a gamble with an address

The most tactically meaningful signal in the squad sits inside a very short sentence. Of Andy Diouf, Zidane said: "I want to see him playing left back."

Diouf is a central midfielder at club level. Moving him to the left flank goes beyond the frame of an emergency fix for an injury. Zidane called it "a strong choice", and made it at the same time as recalling Truffert — an actual left-back. When a coach calls both an experiment and a specialist for the same position, he is not looking for a replacement. He is looking for a model.

And that model responds directly to a diagnosis: the full-back areas were among France's weakest positions at the World Cup just gone.

Technically, moving a central midfielder to the left flank tends to deliver two things. First, the build-up structure becomes more flexible: the full-back can tuck inside when the team has the ball, forming a three-man central line and freeing the flank for a wide runner. Second, the ability to pass under pressure — Diouf's strong suit — becomes an escape valve against the press.

The cost sits on the other side. A central midfielder rarely has to handle a one-on-one defensive duel in open space against a winger with real pace. That is the kind of situation no training ground can simulate. It only appears in a real match, in the 70th minute, when the legs are heavy.

Based on my own experience of watching matches, I filed this away to track: the minutes Diouf actually plays at left-back, and how often he is attacked in the second half. Those two numbers will say more than any commentary.

Core insight: Diouf's positional conversion is not a stopgap, it is a deliberate build-up model — and its risk lies not in his passing but in his ability to defend one-on-one in open space.

Lepaul: the profile of a low-block breaker

Zidane described Lepaul in very specific tactical language: "a different profile", "he can play in tight spaces", "he scores goals". Those three phrases combine into a clear role — a penalty-box striker, a low-block breaker.

For years France have owned strikers who excel on the counter, who run into space behind a high defensive line. But when opponents drop deep, close the box and hand over territory, this team has often lacked a player who can live inside two square metres. Someone who does not need space to create space.

Lepaul's path deserves a close read, because it is a rare data sample. He was released by the Lyon academy, played in lower leagues through Epinal and Orleans, before Angers bought him for 150,000 euros. He then scored 20 league goals for Rennes.

A player speaks with emotion; ten seasons are needed to build a system. Lepaul's trajectory goes beyond the frame of a heartwarming story. It is evidence that European football's scouting networks are widening beyond famous academies, and that a striker's value does not lie in where he was trained.

With Lepaul, the metric worth tracking sits in his touches inside the box and his duels in tight spaces against a deep defence, not in his goal count. If those two hold up at international level, France will have solved a problem that has existed for years.

Jacquet: 70 million euros and the price of expectation

Jacquet, 21, has just moved from Rennes to Liverpool for a reported 70 million euros. This is a market data point, and it should be read as a market data point.

At 21, a centre-back valued at that level means the market is paying for projected potential, not for proven output. The gap between those two things is precisely the expectation risk. If Jacquet performs to expectation, the fee becomes reasonable. If not, it becomes an accounting burden and a psychological one.

One thing needs stating clearly: the 70 million euro figure is reported, without structural detail — instalments, performance add-ons, sell-on clauses. For someone who works in transfer market administration, without those three data points the fee says little about Liverpool's actual risk.

The transfer market is not a game of sentiment, it is a game of maps being redrawn. A 21-year-old centre-back bought at the price of an established one is an arrow pointing somewhere: the border between potential and achievement is fading.

For France the meaning is different. A centre-back who has just changed clubs, moving into a more ferocious competitive environment, will enter the Nations League window in an unsettled physical and mental state. That is a variable that belongs in the model.

23 men, not 44

Germany chose 44 players. France chose 23. This is a conscious choice, and it has consequences.

A 23-man list forces every role to be clear. There is no room for names included only to be observed. Each position has a starter and a deputy. That structure generates faster cohesion, faster role definition, and a clearer hierarchy inside the dressing room.

But it also creates a specific weakness across four consecutive matches: rotation margin. With 23 players and four fixtures at high density, including two meetings with Belgium, a trip to Turkiye and a home game against Italy, the number of fallback options in each unit is limited.

The five-substitution rule helps a deep squad survive a crowded calendar, but it does not help a thin one. Put another way: five subs reward depth, and turn the final 20 minutes of a shallow squad into a war of attrition. France have depth in most units. The question is whether 23 players are enough to sustain that depth across four matches.

The vacuum after Benzema and Kante

Benzema is 38. Kante is 35. Both were crossed off, and the way Zidane spoke about them shows this was a communications-managed decision.

On Benzema: "I adore Karim." He once coached Benzema at Real Madrid. On Kante: "He is extraordinary." Both lines were delivered before anyone had a chance to criticise. That is how noise is reduced before it forms.

But behind the polite wording is a real technical problem. Neither man is simply a player. They are leadership infrastructure. A team that loses two World Cup winners at once loses the hardest thing to measure: the person who says the last word in the dressing room and on the pitch.

Who says that word now? The squad list does not answer. It is one of the variables I will watch most closely in this window — not who scores, but who organises the defence in a set-piece situation in the 85th minute when the team is behind.

Three lines of news off the pitch

Three other items in this bulletin do not belong to tactics but still shape the surrounding picture.

First, Mbappe switched his personal endorsement deal from Nike to On. This is a personal commercial event with no direct impact on any club's finances. But at industry level it is a signal: newer brands are trying to break into a player-endorsement market Nike and Adidas once split between them.

Second, the French federation withdrew its support for Infantino. This is a political act at FIFA level, carrying no immediate sporting sanction, but it points to alliances being reshuffled inside the UEFA bloc.

Third, a smaller detail concerning Mbappe's personal brand, tied to a Ceuta shirt. This is the kind of item that generates noise, and noise always finds a way into a match window.

None of those three lines decides results on the pitch. But they occupy column inches, and those inches should belong to tactical analysis.

The contrarian angle: when optimism is placed before evidence

There is a familiar trap in reading squad lists like this one: we attach to an action a result that has not yet happened.

Zidane called up five new faces and dropped two veterans. That is an action. The result — a younger, more modern team playing more proactive football — does not exist yet. Between the two lie four matches and a complete data vacuum.

Correlation is not causation. A famous coach executing a generational handover does not automatically produce a better team. A centre-back valued at 70 million euros does not automatically become a top international defender. A striker who scored 20 goals in Ligue 1 does not automatically convert that into goals against an Italian defence.

I once published a prediction that was called delusional, and I was right. I have also publicly posted a retrospective piece when my model was wrong. Both taught the same lesson: what deserves trust lies in how honest a forecast is about its confidence interval, not in how bold it sounds.

With this squad, my confidence interval is wide. The left-flank gamble could become an excellent tactical solution. It could equally become an exploitable hole in the two Belgium matches. Both scenarios sit inside the same dataset, and both carry meaningful probability.

What to watch in the next round

We go looking for football's future, while it already sits in pasts that have not yet been encoded. The next four matches will encode this squad into data — or into a forgotten footnote.

Three signals I will log after each match: the minutes Diouf plays on the left flank and how often he is attacked in the second half; the identity of the player organising the defence at set pieces; and Lepaul's touches inside the box against deep-lying opponents.

Someone will read the results of those four matches as a verdict. I will read them as a new table, and start again from the first line.