Wendie Renard is reluctant on the eve of her 10th major tournament with France to overanalyse her chances of securing Olympic gold and finally winning a title with her country. “I’m someone who likes to do, and then speak” the captain says.
The defender has won 38 competitive trophies, all with Lyon, and recognises that Les Bleues’ first title is long overdue after almost two decades of consistent knockout-stage finishes. “When I speak to some of my foreign teammates, they don’t understand it,” she says. “Sometimes it’s a question of luck, sometimes it’s that one or two centimetres’ worth of effort that we weren’t able to put in, and sometimes we weren’t able to close down the passing angles well enough.”
France, who for most of the past decade have been captained by Renard, are often among the favourites at major tournaments but are yet to reach a final. “I think there’s a bit of fear on the part of the teams we face, because we’re so well-rounded,” she says. “But when we look back at the matches in which we were knocked out, we weren’t missing a lot. It’s the little details that send you home.”
The latest of those defeats came at last year’s World Cup against the co-hosts Australia after a penalty shootout in the quarter-finals but there were indications of progress under Hervé Renard. His arrival in March 2023 – after a player mutiny, part of which saw Renard temporarily step away from the national team, and which resulted in Corinne Diacre being ousted – has seemingly been transformative. “He often tells us that we haven’t fully realised our potential yet,” Wendie, who despite sharing a surname is no relation to Hervé, says. “He’s brought in a lot of rigour, self-belief and a sense of solidarity to the team.”
Hervé, a two-time men’s Africa Cup of Nationswinning manager who will leave Les Bleues at the end of the summer, has won the majority of his games. “He wants us playing in a compact block, but also expressing ourselves in attack,” Wendie says.
The centre-back, who has fond memories of London 2012 and Rio 2016, is eager to take in the festive atmosphere of what is likely to be her final Games. “What sets the Olympics apart is the symbolism,” she says. “I think the Olympic rings speak to everybody – in any case, it’s something that strikes me personally.”
She was one of the candidates to be France’s female flag-bearer at the opening ceremony (the honour went to the 45-year-old discus thrower Mélina Robert-Michon), and says sharing the stage with different disciplines strengthens the occasion: “The Olympics are something special – the atmosphere is different. There’s this spirit of exchange between the different athletes.”
The Olympics will also provide Les Bleues with a second shot at success on home soil, five years on from a home World Cup that ended in a quarter-final defeat by the eventual champions, the USA. It was seen as something of a missed opportunity.
Winning Olympic gold would be a positive way to usher in a new era for women’s football in France, with the rebranded and revamped Première Ligue starting next season. The league will notably bring an emphasis on professionalising women’s football and an eventual expansion from 12 to 14 teams.
“We see that we’ve fallen behind compared to other countries – even though at one point we were ahead,” Wendie says, observing that Spain and England have outperformed France at domestic and international level over the past few years. “Now would be the right time to strike, and I say that in all modesty – it would be ideal for us.”
She was introduced to football at l’Essor-Préchotain, in the far west of her birthplace, Martinique, an overseas French territory in the eastern Caribbean sea, and played in the boys’ youth ranks. At 15 she began playing for the island’s premier academy, commuting across to Le Lorrain with her mother at weekends. She impressed the local technical director Jocelyn Germé, who pushed for Renard to try her luck at France’s national football centre, Clairefontaine, at 16. A failed trial there, on the outskirts of Paris, meant what would become an illustrious career nearly fell at the first hurdle.
The teenage Renard was handed a second chance through a glowing recommendation from her future adviser Fred Labiche to the then Lyon coach Farid Benstiti. Her subsequent success with the club has made her a fixture at Clairefontaine with France. “It wasn’t easy to leave Martinique to come here and realise my dream, so I’m really grateful towards the people who helped me along the way,” she says.
Off the pitch, she does not feel much has changed in the 17 seasons since. “I’m much more composed now – I was already like that back then, but more so now because of the experience, maturity and responsibilities I’ve had over the years.”
On Thursday Les Bleues’ captain should earn her 161st cap against Colombia in familiar surroundings – the team kick off their campaign in Lyon, before heading to Saint-Étienne on Sunday to face Canada and returning to Renard’s home stadium for the final group match against New Zealand next Wednesday.
The 34-year-old isn’t discouraged by France’s narrow defeats over the past few tournaments. “Winning the Olympic gold is the dream,” she says. “Personally, I rank playing for my country very highly … So far it’s been a lot of ups and downs, but you learn from the defeats. Life isn’t only made up of victories – many winners have fallen again and again before being crowned. I hope that our efforts over the years will be rewarded this summer.”
