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Deschamps is conservative to the bone in using players for major tournaments. He rarely touches the midfield setup.
Deschamps is conservative to the core when it comes to major tournaments. He rarely touches the midfield setup.
But in the group stage match against Iraq, Tchouaméni was fit and uninjured, yet Deschamps still inserted Koné into the starting lineup.
An ironclad starter, healthy and without injury, being benched—that's essentially flipping the table in the French national team's locker room. Getting a chance because someone else is injured is called luck. Having the head coach voluntarily sideline his own trusted player means that player's performance in training forced the coach to stop turning a blind eye.
On July 4th, in the Round of 16 in Philadelphia, France edged out Paraguay 1-0.
Mbappé scored from the penalty spot. But the most eye-catching stat after the match was Koné's: 71 passes with a 95% success rate. 4 interceptions. 4 wins and 1 loss in aerial duels.
What Tchouaméni gets criticized most for at Real Madrid is his poor ability to progress the ball from deep. He receives dirty balls from the back but can't get out, forced to pass sideways or backwards, turning possession into a rosary. Koné does exactly that dirty work. He takes the hot potato passes from center-backs, turns, and sends a through ball to the feet of the forwards. That 95% pass success rate isn't full of safe passes; it's all about receiving dirty balls under high pressure, turning, and pushing the ball thirty meters forward—the hard work.
The French midfield line lacks an axis that can both win the ball and progress it.
In August 2023, Henry took over the France U21 team. The first thing he did was pull Koné and Barcola aside and lay it out: if you want to make the senior team, here are your weaknesses, and here's how to fix them.
At the Paris Olympics, Henry led the U23 team to a silver medal, losing 5-3 to Spain in extra time. Koné was a starter. After the Olympics, Henry stepped down, but what he planted was taken over by Deschamps. Olympic players were directly inserted into the 2026 World Cup squad.
Koné later told Le Parisien in an interview that he called that Olympics an "accelerator." Henry dragged him from the fringes straight into the core plan.
At the end of the season, Koné had everyone worried.
In January, against Milan in Rome, he pulled his hamstring in the second half and didn't return until mid-February. He barely caught his breath before tearing his right adductor in March against Bologna, only resuming training at the end of April. Two muscle injuries, with a combined recovery time of nearly three months. The Italian media pointed fingers at Roma's coach Gasperini, accusing him of rushing Koné back too soon, which aggravated the second injury.
The World Cup was that summer. Deschamps couldn't sit still.
He personally oversaw Koné's recovery, arranging a five-day special training camp in Monaco. The club was eager to get him on the field and work him like a horse; the national team feared he'd push through the injury and ruin his World Cup. Misaligned interests, aggravated injuries, and ultimately the national team pays the price. Deschamps calculated that equation better than anyone.
In a pre-tournament interview with Reuters, Koné simply said: "If I don't believe in it, no one else will believe in."
He arrived in the US fully fit and started all three group stage matches. France won all three, finishing top of the group with 9 points—the first time they'd done that since winning the title on home soil in 1998.
The transfer market has the keenest nose.
Transfermarkt's valuation in May 2026: €50 million. Roma is holding firm at no less than that. Arsenal is probing between €40 million and €50 million, with Inter, Newcastle, and PSG queuing up. There are far more than just those two clubs eyeing this piece of meat.
Vieira went straight on TV and said: "In my opinion, he is the best midfielder in France, surpassing Tchouaméni and Rabiot."
When a World Cup and Premier League winner says "the best active midfielder in France isn't Tchouaméni or Rabiot," it carries weight.
In May, Gasperini admitted Koné is "not unsellable." In transfer market terms, those six words mean: bring the money, take the player.
25 years old, 185 cm tall, of Ivorian descent. In the 2025-26 season, he played 29 games for Roma in Serie A and the Europa League, scoring 2 goals and providing 3 assists. Across all competitions, he played 45 matches totaling 3,387 minutes, with a 90% pass success rate and 49 tackles. From Colombes in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, to Mönchengladbach, to Rome—this resume is now being circulated across all of Europe.
July 9th, Boston, the quarterfinals. France vs. Morocco.
Morocco had just sent the host nation Canada home with a 3-0 win in the Round of 16. At the pre-match press conference, Koné simply said: "We'll be READY for the game."
In 2018, when France won the World Cup, a 17-year-old Koné was squeezed into the crowd of fans on the Champs-Élysées, cheering along. Eight years later, he was wearing the blue jersey in a World Cup knockout match, smothering the opponent's counter-attack in the corner flag area.
Gasperini's words "not unsellable" are still ringing in the ears. The €50 million price tag is on the market. After these 90 minutes in Boston, that number will only go up.