He was called pale for the semi-final France – Morocco. Adrien Rabiot, who took a “cold snap” this week, will he be restored for the final against Argentina on Sunday?
It was said that Adrien Rabiot was better and then the news came at the end of the day on Wednesday: sick, the Blues midfielder was not aligned on the France – Morocco match sheet yesterday, in the semi-finals of World Cup. Reduced by a “cold snap”, the Juve player, essential in Didier Deschamps’ system since the start of the 2022 World Cup, did not even show the tip of his nose at Al-Bayt Stadium. He stayed at the hotel to try to recover as quickly as possible. Because a final is played this Sunday against Argentina and his absence in midfield would be, as yesterday’s match proved, a real handicap for the reigning world champions.
But what are Adrien Rabiot suffering from, but also Dayot Uppamecano and Kingsley Coman, who are also sick? Wednesday evening, the embarrassment was palpable in the mixed zone among the players and the staff, while the fear of a virus which would spread in the locker room worried before the most important match of the Blues for years. From the end of the lips, the Federation had first evoked a “cold snap” on Tuesday, then yesterday, in L’Equipe, it was the term “flu condition” which was reported. So flu, Covid to another virus? Nothing has yet leaked on the exact illness from which Rabiot suffers, Fifa no longer requiring teams to carry out screening tests for SARS-Cov-2.
It was finally Didier Deschamps who said the most on the sidelines of the victory of the Blues against the Atlas Lions. Adrien Rabiot “was ill a little later” than Dayot Uppamecano, the first affected by a feverish state this week. The former PSG player “was better this afternoon, but not enough, so he stayed at the hotel so as not to take any risks. He should logically be available for Sunday”, specified the coach who wanted to be reassuring . Despite everything, he admits to being “a little more sensitive to anything that can go viral” in the tricolor locker room. “Temperatures have dropped somewhat, there is air conditioning on full blast, feverish states. We are careful. We are taking precautions, we are adapting. Everything that is viral is transmissible, we have taken precautions so that it there is no contact, with Dayot and Adrien”, assured the coach at a press conference, not ruling out the possibility that a virus is circulating in the group.
A player who has become essential in the midfield
A new absence from Rabiot on Sunday would already be a huge blow for Didier Deschamps and the French team. The Juventus player has brilliantly imposed himself in the midfield since the start of the World Cup, in the absence of Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kanté. From the start of the group stage to the quarter-final against England, he has so far delivered an almost perfect copy alongside Aurélien Tchouaméni, with a valuable stabilizing role and some effective raids in the defenses opponents who also allowed him to score the very first goal of the blues against Australia. A sequence that looks very much like a redemption for the “cursed poet” of French football.
After refusing to be one of the eleven alternates selected to replace any injured during the World Cup in Russia four years ago, Adrien Rabiot will have had to atone for his fault with more than two years of absence with the Blues. His return to selection will be marked by a failure at theEuro 2021, without really shining in a personal capacity, if not by proxy with a new scandal from his mother, Véronique Rabiot, in the stands during the disastrous eighth against Switzerland. All this without counting his bickering with PSG which left some gaping scars. Back on an extraordinary journey.
Since his debut in football, Adrien Rabiot has been regularly called upon to defend the colors of France. First with the youngsters, then with the first team. Several times selected in the under 16s then the under 17s from 2010, he was “upgraded” twice in the under 18s then the under 19s and became a starter in 2013 with the latter, at the occasion of the European Championship (defeat in the final against Serbia). The rest will take place with the Espoirs where the coach at the time, Willy Sagnol, placed his trust in him from the Euro 2015 qualifiers.
The year 2016 will be that of integration into the A team. Too slow, no doubt, for his taste. Reservist finally not retained for Euro 2016, Rabiot plays a handful of matches after the competition with the Blues, sometimes entering at the very end of the match and alternating the good and the very average. The 2018 World Cup is fast approaching, the controversy too…
In an email sent to the FFF and coach Didier Deschamps on May 22, 2018, Adrien Rabiot, again a reservist, indicates that he refuses to make himself available to the team to replace any injured during the World Cup in Russia. A reaction of pride which earned him the exclusion of the national team for two years. But Didier Deschamps, magnanimous, calls him back in 2020 to compete in the League of Nations and selects him to participate in Euro 2020, postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic.
“What happened happened and I’m not asking him anything. We’ll discuss,” assured the coach then with the Parisian, specifying that he never expected an apology from the player and promising not to make it “a separate case”. “Surprised” by his return and happy to have “discussed well” with Deschamps, the midfielder presented himself as “another Rabiot” on the eve of the European championship and said he had “grown and matured”. “I will not let go of this place for anything in the world”, he also whispered to the press. After his “huge mistake” and in the absence of a “boss” in the midfield, the 1m88 player knows in any case that he has a card to play during this 2022 World Cup.
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It was on April 3, 1995, in Saint-Maurice, in the Val-de-Marne, that Adrien Rabiot was born. Raised by a father who was passionate about football, the young boy naturally fell into the pot. In 2001, he started playing for US Créteil. Talented and promising, the budding footballer caught the eye of recruiters from the Manchester City club who offered him a training contract. A collaboration that ends after only six months, because the club does not respect, according to the Rabiot clan, certain clauses of the contract. It is therefore after a few months spent abroad that the young Adrien Rabiot returns to France. After a stint with Pau FC, the midfielder joined the Espoirs de Castelmaurou center in 2009 then, the following year, the Paris Saint-Germain training center.
Adrien Rabiot was just 15 when he began his adventure with the Parisian club. He is then far from suspecting that he will become one of the emblematic players for nearly nine seasons and will even be nicknamed “The Duke”. With the under 17s and the under 19s, the midfielder won his first titles and gained experience. He will have to wait until 2012 for a certain Carlo Ancelotti, then coach of the first team, to notice him and make him join the professional group. The adventure with his favorite club began when the young player was only 17 years old. It was under the Laurent Blanc era that the midfielder got more playing time. Adrien Rabiot also took advantage of the injuries of his direct competitor, Thiago Motta, to show his talent.
Eager to play, Adrien Rabiot nevertheless wishes to explore new horizons. The footballer is considering his transfer to the Italian club AS Roma, but the operation ends in failure. The PSG club, holding it against him for this desire to leave, put him out of the pro team at the start of the 2014-2015 season. Under pressure, Adrien Rabiot re-engaged and immediately obtained his first start in Ligue 1. In the following seasons, he gradually established himself as an essential player in the Parisian system. With the arrival of coach Unai Emery in 2016, Adrien Rabiot acquired a new dimension and became a centerpiece, especially during Champions League matches.
The 2018-2019 season is the last that the midfielder will spend under the colors of Paris Saint-Germain. In conflict with management, Adrien Rabiot will be sidelined for a good part of the season. Released from his contract with his training club, the footballer signed up in 2019 with the Juventus club of Torino. After a sluggish start, he gradually established himself among the Bianconeri.
The press regularly echoes Adrien Rabiot’s relationship with his mother Véronique Rabiot, who is none other than his agent. A partnership that denotes in the world of football and which is the subject of many comments. Considered by some to be too protective or even authoritarian (she explained this in West France recently) or, on the contrary, as one of the artisans of the success of her son, Véronique Rabiot has in any case several times caused tensions with her employers. Especially PSG.
Between the end of 2018 and mid-2019, Adrien Rabiot will even be laid off after having welcomed on social networks the qualification of Manchester City against his own club in the Champions League. A scathing interview with Véronique Rabiot at L’Equipe will seal the fate of the player in the capital and his departure for Juve. More recently, in 2020, Adrien Rabiot reportedly refused to return to Turin after the Covid crisis, going on “personal strike” to challenge a drop in wages, according to the newspaper La Stampa.
Adrien Rabiot would however be ranked fifth among the highest paid players in Juventus Turin and even among all Italian football teams. When he signed his contract with Juve in 2019, he would also have received a bonus amounting to 10 million euros. Within the Paris Saint-Germain team, Adrien Rabiot’s salary amounted to 3 million euros in 2018-2019.
Among the Blues also the presence of Adrien Rabiot on the ground and his mother behind the scenes could cause controversy. After the scandal of 2018, the terrible elimination against Switzerland during the last Euro, in June 2021, will be the source of strong tensions between Paul Pogba and Adrien Rabiot on the lawn, under the helpless eye of the coach. The meeting would also have been tense in the stands, where the families of the players were gathered: Véronique Rabiot would thus have indulged in harsh criticism of her son’s teammates, in particular provoking the anger of the Pogba and Mbappé clans…
In 2019, the French international lost his father, Michel Provost, of Kabyle origin, who had suffered from a serious neurological disease for many years.