Holder for the 3rd match of the French team against Tunisia Steve Mandanda is considered one of the big brothers of this French team.
His word counts. In the locker room of the Blues, there is Didier Deschamps, but also Steve Mandanda. Holder against Tunisia, the former goalkeeper of Olympique de Marseille is currently living his 7th tournament with the Euros 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2021 and the World Cups 2010, 2018 and 2022. On the occasion of this match against Tunisia, Steve Mandanda also broke a record with a 155th appearance on a France A team score sheet.
If he is barred by captain Hugo Lloris on the field, he remains an essential element in the locker room. “It’s the World Cup. Nothing is easy. It’s not going to come on its own. We mustn’t let go. Insist. Score the third then the fourth,” he said on the occasion of the first. Les Bleus match against Australia.” “Steve is very listened to, explains Raphaël Varane, vice-captain of Les Bleus. He takes on the role of big brother for each of us. He is the most experienced player. He remains the guarantor of the state of mind. If we are not going in the right direction, we know that he is one of the players who will raise the bar. His words are comforting to the whole group. He can also relay with the staff. He’s a player who fills a lot of roles. “
With the France team, Steve Mandanda is far from being a rookie. At 37, he is the oldest of the group that flew to Qatar. Since 2008, the goalkeeper has been regularly called up with the selection. But in 14 years of international career, the Franco-Congolese has never been number 1 in the hierarchy, the fault of a Hugo Lloris who has never moved from his status as an indisputable holder. 118 times the goalkeeper was entered on the score sheet without entering the field.
However, Raymond Domenech, Laurent Blanc and Didier Deschamps – the three coaches he knew – have, in turn, given him playing time, most of the time for friendly matches. Note, however, a few appearances in qualifying for the World Cup or the Euro and a tenure during the 2018 World Cup, on the occasion of the third pool match against Denmark (0-0).
With despite everything 34 selections on the clock, Steve Mandanda appears as a pillar of the France group, he who had known the joys of the national selection with the hopes in 2004, at 19 years old, while he was still evolving in Le Havre (Ligue 2). His 16 performances in the antechamber of the pennant team accumulated during the 2005 Toulon Tournament (for which he was voted best goalkeeper) and the 2006 Euro hopes, coupled with his arrival in Marseille in 2007 where he won the trophy of the revelation of the year, had opened the doors of the “real” Clairefontaine to him.
Sidelined in recent months due to the performances of Alphonse Aréola, Mike Maignan or even Benoît Costil, and in need of renewal to prepare for the future in this position with the Blues, Steve Mandanda is therefore offered a honor to Qatar before, probably, putting away the tricolor jersey for good.
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Steve Mandanda’s career is closely linked to Olympique de Marseille. However, nothing suggested that the one who was born in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, would become the icon of the Marseille city. After starting out in the cages of the Evreux team between 1994 and 2000, where he was regularly outclassed, Steve Mandanda joined the training center in the neighboring town of Le Havre at the age of 15. A member of Le Havre’s professional squad from 2004, he played his first pro match on December 11 against US Quevilly in French Cup (loss 1-2). Becoming goalkeeper of the HAC in 2005, his talent and his performances earned him to join the France U23 team the same year, with a victory in the Toulon tournament and the title of best goalkeeper in the competition.
Spotted by the Marseille recruitment cell after a failure in the English club of Aston Villa (Birmingham, England), he landed at theOM understudy of Cédric Carrasso in the summer of 2007, who was promised to take over from Fabien Barthez definitively. An injury to the Achilles tendon of number 1 during the summer finally gives the status of holder to the young doorman, freshly arrived from Le Havre. Elected revelation of the year in 2007 and best goalkeeper in 2008, he will never leave the Olympian cage again until the summer of 2016, opening the doors of the France team to him at almost all gatherings, without ever however become a holder.
In nine years, he has played 441 games for Marseille. Enough to make him the second most capped player in the history of the Marseille club, behind Roger Scotti, the attacking midfielder in 452 games between 1942 and 1958. Mandanda then left OM for England, at the foot of a record , crowned with a title of champion of France in 2010 and three consecutive League Cups from 2010 to 2012.
But at Crystal Palace (south of London), his new club, the adventure turns into a fiasco and the goalkeeper goes the opposite way a year later. As if nothing had changed, Steve Mandanda resumed his place in goal for OM and, in October 2017, became the player who played the most matches with the jersey of Olympique de Marseille thanks to a tenure in Strasbourg. . Whatever the three goals conceded on October 15 (3-3), history is written. A record marked forever in the corridors of the Vélodrome stadium, stopped at 613 past meetings in the Marseille cage.
His last Olympian years were marked by the Europa League final in 2018 and 2nd place in Ligue 1 in 2020, then a benching in 2021-2022 by Jorge Sampaoli, then OM coach, which proceeds to a turnover with its new recruit Pau Lopez. The historic Marseille goalkeeper only played 20 games during the season, his lowest total since the 2004-2005 season (his debut with Le Havre). In the summer of 2022, he left the Marseille club again and joined Rennes until 2024.
Meanwhile, with the Blues, Steve Mandanda won the World Cup in 2018 and was selected by Didier Deschamps for Euro 2020 played in 2021, as the second goalkeeper of the Blues, then for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
In the Mandanda family, Steve and his three brothers have been affected by the football virus. However, difficult to compose part of a team with this sibling of four boys. All are indeed… goalkeepers. The eldest, Steve, is therefore the titular porter of the Rennais Stadium and substitute in the France team. His first brother, Parfait Mandanda (33), also experienced the joys of the national team with Congo and is today without a club, after the disappearance of his former formation, Royal Excel Mouscron (Belgium). The third child in the family, Riffi (30), is also without a club after a last experience in Créteil, as is the youngest in the family, Over (24), ex-keeper of AS Saint-Priest.