Double and voila!
Silent since October 2019 with the Blue, Eugénie Le Sommer twice deceived North Macedonia on Tuesday and brought down, at 31 years and 82 goals, the old record of the historic Marinette Pichon.
She said not to "take the lead" with this goal, which the followers reminded her at every rally, but her joy, Tuesday in the closed door of Skopje, was a pleasure to see.
The number 9, captain's armband on his arm, scored on a direct free kick (14th) then on the penalty (18th), before drowning in the arms of his partners.
Eleven years after the first, the 82nd international goal of the Lyon striker tastes of patience and resilience, after a season hampered by physical glitches, the long cut linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, and a small failure of efficiency in front of the opposing cages.
"Lately she has been disturbed by repeated injuries and she comes out of a dotted season", but "she has a competitive mentality and displays a lot of qualities", in addition to being a "good example" for her teammates , recently slipped to AFP the ex-international Sonia Bompastor.
The current director of training for women's OL knows Le Sommer well since she was on the pitch when the young player from Saint-Brieuc, 19 at the time, was honoring her first cap against the Republic of Ireland ( 2-0), in a friendly match on February 12, 2009 in Blois.
The Breton substitute had not scored that day, but from her second selection, March 5, 2009 against Scotland (2-0) in Cyprus in a friendly tournament.
"It's difficult, because I won everything in club and conversely, in the France team, nothing at all ..."
Eugenie Le Sommer
Since then, the Lyonnaise has gorged herself on goals and titles with her club (seven in the Champions League and ten in the French Championship in particular), while stacking the selections with the jersey struck by the rooster ... without ever lifting the slightest official trophy with Les Bleues.
"It's difficult, because I won everything in club and conversely, in the French team, nothing at all ...", noted in April 2019 the fifth most capped player in the French team, two months before the elimination in the quarter-finals of the World Cup against the United States.
And despite this new sporting disappointment, coupled with criticisms launched a posteriori by the coach Corinne Deacon against him, the love of the blue jersey has never weakened at Le Sommer.
“Wearing the jersey means a lot to me,” she explained to AFP last week, presenting as a secondary objective the fact of equaling or even exceeding the bar of 81 goals reached by Marinette Pichon in 2006.
Nevertheless, "this record is in a corner of his head and as long as it is not beaten, it will be difficult," noted the coach on Monday.
But "she will beat him tomorrow (Tuesday) and we will not talk about it any more" then, had predicted Deacon.
“It would be a lie to say that I don't want him to be beaten tomorrow.
But in football we can not predict things, "had tempered Le Sommer to the press.
"In any case, I do not take the lead, I continue to advance and I try to do better game after game."
Beyond the record, the Lyonnaise sees herself especially "continuing for a long time" with the Blue, with whom she hopes to play her third Euro in two years in England.
"As long as I play, I want to be in selection", but "of course, it is not me who chooses", she slipped this week, laughing.
Eternal beating, always smiling, the bride with 172 selections now has a new goal: to nibble her delay on the most capped Sandrine Soubeyrand (198), Élise Bussaglia (192), Laura Georges (188) and Camille Abily (183).
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