Sakina Karchaoui is one of the most popular players in the France team. Perhaps the most popular. But when she joins us at 9am at Clairefontaine, the national centre of French football,Les Bleues’No 7 appears quite shy. Wearing a blue tracksuit emblazoned with the French rooster, she smiles for the first time when Kenza Dali teases her: “Interview for the Guardian … in English please, Saki!”
Spring has finally sprung in the French capital and for the native of Salon-de-Provence, in southern France, the prospect of training in the sunshine is another reason to smile. “We are almost ready for the Euros,” Karchaoui says as she looks at the training ground below. “We work a lot tactically with the coach, we work technically, physically, all aspects of football. I think we can win many things together; we’ve got so much talent. And if everyone brings their own little madness, their own experience and their own qualities to the group, that’s what will make us win.”
Les Bleuesface a difficult assignment at July’s tournament in a group with England, the Netherlands and Wales. The team are led by Laurent Bonadei, the former assistant to Hervé Renard, who stepped down after an unsuccessful Olympic Games on home soil that brought elimination in the quarter-finals against Brazil. Bonadei was the continuity choice and was welcomed by Karchaoui, one of the dressing room leaders: “He knows what happened, what he has to work on … his human side is so important, especially in a group and even more during competitions. He impresses me. I feel that he is everywhere. When there are [club] matches, he is there. Even if it’s just less important matches, he is always there. He is always present, he knows what’s going on. And having a coach like that, it changes [things]. He is really invested in all that.”
Karchaoui was trained as a winger but the Paris Saint-Germain player became one of the French league’s best full-backs and is now an undisputed starter in France’s midfield. “During Hervé Renard’s era, he told me that I was a top left-back but he wanted me to play at the heart of the game,” the former Montpellier player says. “He was so sure of that, I played my first match [there] in Newcastle, against England. We won 2-1. I had a great match, as a midfielder, against one of the best teams in the world … so I thought maybe he was right.”
Karchaoui, who defines herself as “a creator”, nowplays in midfield too for PSG. “The coaches don’t talk to me about the left-back position any more. As a full-back, I had a skill set so wide that I think I wasn’t happy with this position any more. I wasn’t happy just to stay in my area on the pitch. When you get to a stage where you go from playing as a left-back to a midfielder, it means that you already have an intelligent game. When you play in the midfield, you play even more intelligently.”
To match the level of “players who have been trained their entire careers as midfielders”, she watches a lot of videos. “I try to always add something new to my game,” she says. Her role model? Luka Modric.
Although she cites a man as a reference for her position, she is an example herself for the next generation. Karchaoui embraces her role-model status, aware that two of her younger France squad-mates view her in that light: “I remember one day, when with PSG we were playing against Paris FC, Melween N’Dongala [the Paris FC right-back] didn’t dare to talk to me at the end of the match,as she was too overawed. I also know that Lou Bogaert [the Paris FC left-back] watches videos of my games to progress.”
She is proud, after growing up without a female role model and being a fan of Samir Nasri and Robin van Persie, to be an idol for kids, whether girls or boys: “I succeeded where I would never have thought,” she says. “It shows the success of women’s football.”
Karchaoui describes herself as “very discreet”, even more so when it comes to protecting the “cocoon” of her personal life, but when she is asked about her Moroccan roots, her face lights up. She has never been more expressive at press conferences than before France faced Morocco in the last 16at the 2023 World Cup. “I have a 100% Moroccan education and I’m not ashamed to say it,” says a player who grew up in the low-income housing projects of Miramas, less than 10 miles from Salon-de-Provence. “I think it’s wonderful in the French national team because you have other people who have their origins, who have a different education, but in the end there are the same values that bring us together.”
It is a defence of multiculturalism in France, where the far right is rising and attempting to divide. “If you don’t see it with the right eyes, and you don’t see that we have a country where we are lucky to have so many cultures, so many different origins, so many differences, and that’s what makes everyone bring their own thing, I find it a bit stupid,” Karchaoui says.
Last year, she extended her contract with PSG until 2028, despite offers from “big European clubs, even from the United States or Saudi Arabia”. Karchaoui wanted to set an example and “be a spokeswoman” to help a “stagnating” French league grow. The top division has become professional but that will probably not tie her there for the rest of her career. “I signed for PSG but it doesn’t mean anything,” she says. “I do everything for this club at the moment. I give my all. But it doesn’t mean I won’t go somewhere else later.”
Speaking of a next destination, she has a precise idea: “I really love the English championship. Why not play there one day? I almost signed there twice, and in France we say things always come in threes, so we don’t know.” She has discussed the Women’s Super League with her English PSG teammate Mary Earps. “Her dream was to play in France, and now she’s there. Maybe we can swap roles. I’m 29 years old, I’m in top form. I’ve never felt so good physically, mentally, in everything. As a woman too. And I know that I haven’t done everything I would like to do yet.”
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