PADERBORN, Germany — It didn’t take long for defender William Saliba to pick his favourite photo from Friday’s quarterfinal between France and Portugal.
Of course, he loved Theo Hernández’s winning penalty in the shootout, the celebrations that followed with the France players, and the communion with their delirious fans inside the stadium in Hamburg. But the one moment, the one snapshot he chose, was when he fended off Cristiano Ronaldo’s challenge after getting the ball off him in the first half. It’s true Ronaldo, 39, is not the player he used to be, but he’s still one of the game’s greatest and in Saliba’s first encounter against him, the Arsenal centre-back showed his class.
Saliba is having a wonderful Euro 2024. He is arguably the best defender left in the competition — France face Spain in the first semifinal on Tuesday, with England and Netherlands doing battle 24 hours later — and, having been the best in the Premier League last season, might just be the best defender in the world right now.
A month ago, Saliba walked into Clairefontaine (the France national team’s HQ in the south of Paris) as a substitute. In Didier Deschamps’ mind at the time, Dayot Upamecano and Ibrahima Konaté were his two starters at centre-back, just like they were at the 2022 World Cup. When it came to Saliba, the head coach still had some reservations … much like the ones he’d expressed in March, when he said he didn’t consider him ready to start for France.
Deschamps felt the 23-year-old could be more focused and show more ruthlessness in one-vs.-one situations. Saliba didn’t take it personally; the two had a long discussion during the pre-Euro camp and, at the end of it, the Paris-born defender felt he could change his coach’s mind. And he has done just that.
The most impressive thing with Saliba is his quiet ambition and motivation to prove people wrong. He did it at Arsenal with Mikel Arteta, who was not at all convinced initially about the defender’s role in his team and was sent out on loan. He did it with Jorge Sampaoli at Marseille. And he’s done it this summer with Deschamps.
It’s important to bring some perspective to just how good Saliba has been for France: he had never started a single game at a major tournament until he faced Austria three weeks ago. Yet he has shown so much confidence, calmness and power — and against the likes of Marko Arnautovic (Austria), Memphis Depay (Netherlands), Robert Lewandowski (Poland), Romelu Lukaku (Belgium) and, of course, Ronaldo as well. None of these world-class forwards have managed to dribble past him once or to cause him problems.
Saliba’s partnership with Upamecano, and with Mike Maignan in goal behind them, has been amazing to watch and they’ve built a strong understanding. As soon as the game against Belgium finished, the two defenders hugged, then ran towards their goalkeeper for a group embrace. In that round-of-16 game, Saliba came up against Lukaku in the first real blockbuster “striker vs. defender” duel of the tournament and the Frenchman won it easily as Les Bleus advanced 1-0.
