The nationalization in Spain of Manchester City center-back Aymeric Laporte with a view to his participation with the national team in Euro 2020 has generated criticism and disappointment in France, the country where you were born and where you grew up.
'L'Équipe' analyzes this Wednesday “Why Laporte has chosen the Red”, and relates it above all to the fact that until now he has not been able to play with the absolute French team, but also that he could have “an important role “in the Spanish scheme for that Euro Cup.
The French sports newspaper notes that “Laporte has succumbed to the Iberian sirens when he has never yet worn the shirt of the French team A”.
The former Athletic Bilbao player had indeed played 24 games in various competitions with the lower categories of the “bleus” and had even been selected three times by Didier Deschamps, but none of the three caught on.
The last time was in August 2019 for the Eurocup qualification campaign, but the center-back was then injured and the invitation could not materialize.
'L'Équipe' recalls some of his statements in March in which he stated that wearing the French national team shirt “has always been” his “dream” and that when he did it in the lower categories it had been “one of the best experiences ” of their life.
Also that the fact of not having been able to play any match with the “bleus” was a thorn in his mind, and that he had even sent a message to Didier Deschamps for which he had not received an answer.
In another television interview in November, Laporte acknowledged that not playing for the French national team constituted “a great disappointment” for him, especially after five years in the lower categories.: “You have to accept it and work hard and assert yourself to get back to level.”
The newspaper does not deprive itself of reproducing other words of his on the Basque television ETB in December 2018. At the time, it claimed to believe that the French coach had not called him up for “personal reasons” and emphasized that he had “chosen France”, that he was French, that he did not even have dual citizenship and was not going to ask for it.
Aymeric Laporte has received criticism from people in the world of French football, such as former player and current sportscaster Jérôme Rothen, who have described him as “opportunistic”.
In an intervention this Tuesday on his radio station, RMC, Rothen has said he was upset by Laporte's decision to nationalize Spanish, after having signed up as a possible player for the French national team for which he had been called up in 2016, 2017 and 2019. “When you sign up and you feel French, you go with France. If you feel Spanish, you go with Spain. But don't be opportunistic”, has sentenced the former French international, close to Didier Deschamps.
Emmanuel Petit, who also defended the “bleus” shirt in his football career, has also charged Laporte at RMC and said that he does not like what he has done: “So you can choose the country you want? Do you want to? (…) He had claimed his love for the French team and suddenly went to Spain “.
Official in the BOE
The Official State Gazette (BOE) has officially confirmed this Wednesday the nationalization by letter of nature of Aymeric Laporte: “At the proposal of the Minister of Justice in response to the exceptional circumstances that concur with Mr. Aymeric Jean Louis Gerard Alphonse Laporte, and after deliberation by the Council of Ministers at its meeting on May 11, 2021, I have come to grant Spanish nationality by letter of nature to Don Aymeric Jean Louis Gerard Alphonse Laporte, with a civil neighborhood of the Basque Country “, wrote the Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, in the BOE.