How are you feeling heading into your first World Cup game? Grace Geyoro: When you’re preparing for a World Cup, you can’t help but feel good. There is this feeling of excitement. We are lucky, I see it as a great opportunity to continue doing what we love.

What do you remember from your season at Paris SG? Especially the experience. I played a lot of matches, it’s one of the seasons where I played the most. I changed position (she played in defense, editor’s note), I still learned a lot of things. Collectively, I’d say it’s pretty decent. We were present on all fronts until the end, even if we lack this title. I learned about myself, I did things that I’m not supposed to know how to do.

What have you evolved the most on? On my adaptation. I know that I have this ability to help out in defense or otherwise. It’s very positive. Even if everyone knows that my favorite position is midfield, it allowed me to discover another palette of my game, be it heading, speed, appreciation of trajectories. These are things that I missed and on which I will be able to rely also in the middle.

At the 2019 World Cup, you hardly played. How do you look back on your last four seasons? The player I was in 2019 allowed me to be who I am today, compared to what I’ve been through. The fact of playing less, it forged me, it gave me a boost because I was criticized for staying a little on my achievements. I said to myself that it was time for me to pass this milestone and that’s what I managed to do the following year. I also gained a lot of responsibilities at Paris SG, which allowed me to develop, to grow. We had to go through that. I knew I had to use this episode. This did not happen by chance. I had to assert myself, take responsibility.

How does this taking on responsibility translate? I think I have this natural leadership, you have to try to put it at the service of the collective, to push the teammates, to be present when you need me on and off the field. It goes through all those things. I know what I can bring to the team. A World Cup is the time to assert yourself, to show that you are capable of doing it.

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The words you use resemble those of coach Hervé Renard… Exactly. The coach just came to remind us that we were a great team, and that to show it we would have to go through big matches. I believe that this competition can be a trigger for us. Now the rest is between our feet, but I think we have the team for it. It will also be a lot psychological, you will have to give your all at every moment.

There is the return of a manager like Eugénie Le Sommer, but also the arrival of new faces for this World Cup. How are these generations articulated? We know that to go far in a World Cup, we need all that. We need experience, but also young people who arrive with their madness and players a little in between who are necessary to form a solid team. Now it’s up to us to create this team, this soul, this strength to go all the way.

Do you like the profile of Hervé Renard? With a little hindsight since the first gathering, I think it was the best choice for us. We needed that. But it won’t just go through him, it has to go through us. We are a team: the players, the staff. We have to pull each other up. He has this ability to put his teams in confidence. We know that he is known for that, for successfully pushing his group to the top. All this will have to be translated on the field during the competition, but what it already brings is proof that we are going in the right direction.