Captain of AC Milan, Théo Hernandez won very quickly in Blue where he joined his brother Lucas Hernandez. Can the two players be lined up together by Didier Deschamps during the World Cup in Qatar? Profile, statistics, career with the France team and state of form for the World Cup…
Called by Didier Deschamps in the list of Blues for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Theo Hernandez is playing his first World Cup. The defender embodies a more offensive version in a sector of play where his brother Lucas, who can also evolve in the axis, had imposed himself in 2018. Simple lining or real alternative to this position? Théo Hernandez will be keen to repeat his brilliant performances in Serie A. AC Milan executive, he is even the captain, Théo Hernandez could even start with the Blues. Very comfortable in a defense in three with a role of piston with in support the possibility of seeing his brother Lucas Hernandez lend him a hand, Théo Hernandez will he however also comfortable in a defense with four, a system again favored by Didier Deschamps for the World Cup? His speed and his abnegation will be two certain strengths even if his defensive qualities have already been called into question.
“Coach Didier tells me to try and push my actions to the maximum, explained, at the end of February, Theo Hernandez to L’Equipe. This system is the best to express my qualities. I have the speed, the center and the strike . More than a “defending” full-back, I am an “attacking” full-back. I like to participate in the game, bring the surplus, go after the actions and score. It’s sometimes hard: forward, back, forwards, backwards… But I have the cash for that. All of this involves risks. We know that by playing with me like that. But coach Didier also tells me not to forget to defend.” It should be one of the keys to his first World Cup.
Théo Hernandez knew a lot of selections of young people with the France team. He was selected with the U18s, U19s and U20s. On August 26, 2021, Didier Deschamps summoned him for the first time for the qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The Milan side knows his first selection on September 8, 2021 where he plays the entire match against Finland. A month later, Théo Hernandez was again called up and played an important match in the semi-finals of the League of Nations against Belgium. He offers the winning goal to the Blues at the end of a match where France was led by two goals. This is his first goal in the tricolor jersey. He then played in the final of this competition and offered Kylian Mbappé the opportunity to score the coronation goal that the Parisian striker would not miss. In the wake of a very good season with AC Milan crowned Italian champion 2022 and 7 first interesting selections in Blue, Théo Hernandez is called up for the World Cup by Didier Deschamps.
Théo Hernandez was born on October 6, 1997 in Marseille, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of France. Like his brother Lucas, Theo Hernandez is a pure product of the Spanish football school where he lived from his earliest childhood, following the end of the career of his father Jean-François who passed through Atletico Madrid. It is in this club that he cut his teeth in the youth team and then with the reserve, counting a first tenure with the A team in the 2015-2016 season. He is recruited by the great rival, the real Madrid, in 2017 where he struggled to win but expanded his record of a Champions League in 2018 under the orders of Zinedine Zidane. Loaned to Rayo Vallecano then to Real Sociedad to save playing time, he was finally recruited by AC Milan in 2019. In Italy, Theo Hernandez garnered minutes, assists and goals, sometimes spectacular, contributing greatly to the return of AC Milan to the fore and the title of Italian champion 2022.
Théo Hernandez is the younger brother of Lucas Hernandez who plays for German club Bayern Munich. Two years separate the two players. The Bavarian defender became international before his brother and won the World Cup with the France team in 2018 in Russia. But before that the two brothers experienced a complicated episode in 2003 when their father, Jean-François Hernandez, disappeared without a trace. Theo and Lucas Hernandez embarked on football a year later at Rayo Vallecano when they had been living in Spain since 2000. Theo Hernandez’s older brother rose through the ranks more quickly in the world of football and signed at Bayern in 2019 when he was 23 years old. But since then the two players have been among the best in their position and both play for the France team, even becoming the first members of the same siblings to play a World Cup together in the blue jersey for 90 years and the Laurent brothers (Jean and Lucien) in 1932!
In November 2022, a few days before the World Cup, the magazine France Football published a large investigation in the footsteps of the father of Lucas and Théo Hernandez, Jean-François Hernandez, ex-professional player in the 1980s and 1990s disappeared mysteriously in the early 2000s. The magazine notably questioned their half-sister who denies the thesis of abandonment and evokes a family dispute with the mother of the two French internationals. Jean-François Hernandez notably evolved in Toulouse until 1994, in Sochaux in 1995 at Olympique de Marseille from 1995 to 1998 before ending his career in Spain at Atletico de Madrid and Rayo Vallecano.
Théo Hernandez is a native of the city of Marseille. And in 2017, a rumor about a possible interest of theOM arrives at the ears of the left side. Asked by the Spanish daily AS about this transfer rumour, Théo Hernandez defuses and replies: “OM? I’m not thinking about it. I leave that to my agent. I just have to keep playing and growing.” But the side adds that OM “is not just any club” but that he does not want to “be distracted” for all that, thus silencing these rumours. Since then, Théo Hernandez joined AC Milan in 2019.