William Saliba fails to dislodge Ibrahima Konaté and Dayot Upamecano ahead of Euro 2024 | OneFootball

William Saliba got a rare chance to impress at the heart of the France defence in Sunday’s Euro 2024 preparation match against Canada. It is a chance that he took, however, Le Parisien understands that it won’t be enough for him to dislodge the current pairing.

Since Raphaël Varane’s retirement at international level, Didier Deschamps has tested out a variety of different centre-back pairings. He now seems to have settled on Bayern Munich’s Dayot Upamecano and Liverpool’s Ibrahima Konaté. However, in Les Bleus’ final game before Euro 2024, Saliba was thrown into the starting line-up, at the expense of Konaté.

France, with Saliba partnering Upamecano, kept a clean sheet but failed to score as the game ended in a goalless draw. Whilst Deschamps stated that Saliba showed “lots of stability” in defence, Le Parisien understands that he won’t start against Austria in France’s Euro 2024 opener against Austria on Sunday. Instead, the Arsenal man will be dropped in favour of reverting to the Konaté-Upamecano partnership. He therefore starts the upcoming tournament as the third-choice centre-back for Les Bleus.

GFFN | Luke Entwistle