It was inevitably going to be a singular day. The French men’s national football team will face Ukraine on Thursday, November 13 at 8:45 pm at Parc des Princes in Paris, aiming to secure their qualification for the 2026 World Cup held next summer in the United States, Mexico and Canada. The match was scheduled exactly 10 years to the day after a series of attacks left 132 dead and more than 350 injured in the French capital and in Saint-Denis, the suburb home to the Stade de France, where Les Bleus were playing Germany in a friendly.
The date remains synonymous with horror for the entire country. For that reason, the scheduling of the France-Ukraine match caused a certain unease, even for head coach Didier Deschamps, who did not hide his discomfort. “Deep down, if we could have avoided playing on November 13, it would have been better,” he said, visibly moved, at a press conference one week before the match, expressing his “respect for the families who suffered and who lost loved ones.”
Deschamps was there as the national team’s manager that night in 2015. Between 9:16 pm and 9:53 pm, during the match, three terrorists detonated their explosive belts in streets close to the stadium, injuring several people and killing Manuel Dias, a driver who had brought spectators to the game.
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