Lucas Digne earned his 26th France cap after a fine start to the Premier League season with Marco Silva’s Everton.
If France’s 2018 World Cup triumph wasn’t impressive enough, it is easy to forget that Didier Deschamps’s side conquered the globe without a natural full-back in their starting XI.
With Benjamin Pavard on the right and Lucas Hernandez on the left, it’s no real surprise that Les Blues kept four clean sheets in seven matches on Russian soil.
But if Deschamps can harness the creative talents of Lucas Digne, his star-studded French side could be even more fearsome going into Euro 2020.
While Bayern Munich’s record signing Hernandez remains an awesome specimen of athleticism who honed his knife-between-the-teeth combativeness under the one and only Diego Simeone, Digne is the archetypal modern-day full-back who is arguably far better going forward than he is going back.
But what the Everton star lacks in defensive discipline, he more than makes up for in final-third quality. An £18 million signing from Barcelona in 2018 (Guardian), Digne has three assists in five games already for Everton this season and thumped a sensational free-kick into the top corner against Lincoln City in the EFL Cup.
And he was rewarded with a 26th France cap during Tuesday night’s comfortable 3-0 Euro 2020 qualifying victory against Andorra. But it seems that Digne still has much to do to win over each and every member of the famously demanding Les Blues fanbase.
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