Following their 4-3 win over Argentina’s Lionel Messi in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the French team was evacuated from their hotel, after defender Adil Rami used a fire extinguisher at teammates.
In the BBC documentary, the team members of the France World Cup winning team revealed what exactly happened that night.
“Of course, the smoke detector went off.” 😳
Find out what happened after France won their 2018 World Cup semi-final in ‘How to win the World Cup’ right now over on @BBCOne ⤵️📺#BBCWorldCup #BBCFootball
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) November 20, 2022
“After the match against Argentina, Didier had given the players leave after dinner,” said Philippe Tournon, who was press officer for the French national team from 1983-2004 and again from 2010-18.
The players returned at 2 am and took to banging on Rami’s hotel room door.
French journalist says: After beating Argentina in the last 16, some players decided to go out celebrating.
“Adil Rami stays in his room and plays Fortnite in his pants,” says Laurens.
“Adil reacts, grabs the fire extinguisher, and starts spraying everybody,” adds Laurens.
Forward Olivier Giroud said most of them were youngsters. He says: “They were very loud, most of the young players.”
“It was funny, you couldn’t see anything!” adds Giroud.
Tournon described what happened after the smoke detector went off.
“The smoke detector went off and woke up the whole hotel. My room was next to Deschamps. I thought he was going to tear them apart,” recalls Tournon.
“Instead, Deschamps said, ‘If I lay into them. I might break something we’ve been building for five or six weeks,” says Touron.
Deschamps’ former team-mate Marcel Desailly isn’t surprised.
“He’s an ex-player, we’ve done certain things that were borderline … very borderline! I can say, I cannot reveal this one, but. So he knows he has it in his system,” says Desailly.
Deschamps didn’t make a fuss out of it, and the next morning all of them had a good laugh.
“The next morning, everybody laughs about it. And that moment, in a way, emphasises so well the team spirit that France had at that world cup,” says Laurens
Rami had narrated the incident to ‘The Sun’ in 2018 after France went on to win the World Cup. He had said: “The team began entering rooms and overturning the furniture. I took a fire extinguisher into my room as a precaution. When my door opened, Benjamin Mendy stuck his foot in and shouted: ‘Come on, boys, let’s trash Rami’s room!’ I let off the extinguisher on them. It was like a scene from Ghostbusters.”
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