Didier Deschamps, the French national team head coach, this week chose his squad for the final preparation friendlies before this summer’s tournament. Deschamps’ selection included a number of PSG players: Chevalier as well as full back Lucas Hernandez, midfielder Warren Zaire-Emery and forwards Ousmane Dembélé and Désiré Doué with Bradley Barcola only excluded due to his injury knock against Chelsea.
Six months ago, Chevalier’s inclusion wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows whatsoever, but the young keeper’s position has certainly become more complicated in the interceding period, with poor form and a number of errors leading to goal leading to him being dropped by Luis Enrique in favour of Russian shot-stopper Matvei Safonov.
Chevalier dropped in France's goalkeeper hierarchy
Despite this difficult moment in Chevalier’s career, Deschamps has remained loyal to the goalkeeper, stating that he has decided to ‘extend his hand’ to Chevalier, despite him being out of favour with Luis Enrique. Deschamps also stated that in only four months the situation has changed, before which Chevalier would have been a potential starter for the French national team, in competition with Mike Maignan.
Deschamps did however point out that Chevalier is now third choice goalkeeper, meaning that Brice Samba will be ahead of him in the pecking order were Mike Maignan to be unavailable for some reason. Deschamps also stated that he didn’t know whether Chevalier’s PSG situation would evolve over the next period: "I don’t know if things will change after the break. I’m not putting any pressure on Luis Enrique or on PSG, far from it. I hope for him [for Chevalier] that things will change."
Chevalier’s status as third choice goalkeeper is also a risky one given the World Cup is now fast approaching: any upturn in form from another goalkeeper could mean his exclusion from the tournament, and even were he to go to the USA in the summer, it is rare for third choice goalkeepers to play substantial minutes at international level.
Chevalier will have to hope that Enrique starts to implement some form of rotation in goal over the last few months of the season, and that he can demonstrate an improvement on the early season form that saw him rapidly lose his starting berth. It’s important to recall, as Deschamps highlighted, that Chevalier was a seen as a highly rated and promising young goalkeeper as recently as a few months ago, and that all his good work at Lille should not be discarded because of a difficult few months at PSG.