Though scoring goals, winning matches and lifting trophies have never been easy tasks to accomplish, they have become second nature to Eugenie Le Sommer. In contrast, however, getting her to acknowledge her own considerable talent and the fact that she is one of the best players on the planet is an altogether harder challenge.  
Twice voted France’s player of the year, in 2010 and 2015, Le Sommer was also the French league’s leading scorer in 2009 and 2012 and the player of the tournament at the 2015 Algarve Cup, and has also won three UEFA Champions League titles, six French championships and five national cups. Yet in spite of it all, she would have you think that those accolades have been down to the help she gets from her team-mates at Olympique Lyonnais and the French national team.
The reality is a little different, however. While it is much easier for a player to shine when they are surrounded by great talents, such as those possessed by France and l’OL, the fact is that there was a time when the free-scoring forward carried the national team on her shoulders. And it was at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Chile 2008 that Le Sommer showed her value to the national cause and launched what has become a brilliant career.
On being pushed to put modesty to one side, she finally recognised that she was a little more than just another player in the France team that reached the last four at that competition. “I was one of the senior figures already and one of the best players. I realised that,” said a reserved and smiling Le Sommer in conversation with FIFA.com, eight years on from her maiden world finals.
“I started every game, which I guess means that I was an important player in the team,” she added. “But there was no way I’d ever have thought I could go from that to being the third-best player in the tournament and scoring so many goals.”
A forward step
She found the back of the net four times in six excellent performances, firing her country to an unexpected fourth place and herself to the adidas Bronze Ball, an achievement made all the more impressive by the quality of the two players ahead of her on the podium. “I remember them very well. It was Alex Morgan and Sydney Leroux,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation when asked to name them.
Discussing the USA strike duo, who have since gone on to win the world title and Olympic gold, Le Sommer said: “Leroux was substitute when we played them in the group phase, and she got two goals. Morgan got a few goals too. They really impressed me. Third behind two great players: that’s not bad.”
Could Le Sommer and Les Bleuettes perhaps have set their sights even higher in Chile? Looking back, the Lyon star felt a pang of regret at losing to Korea DPR in the semi-finals and then going down to Germany in the match for third place.
“It was such a big thing to reach the semis, though we didn’t really go there with victory in mind,” said Le Sommer, who was playing for Lorient at the time. “French women’s football wasn’t quite as good at the time, and none of the previous generations had ever got further than the quarter-finals.
“We managed to reach the last four, which was a step forward and we didn’t have any special pressure on us. Maybe we didn’t quite get as far as we would have liked, and if we were in that situation again today, it might be different. With hindsight, I say to myself that we should have been more ambitious, because we had a good team.”
Dedicated to her art
That France side comprised some other big names aside from Le Sommer, with the likes of Wendie Renard, Karima Benameur and Marie-Laure Delie all becoming Bleuesmainstays. For the most part, though, Le Sommer’s team-mates in Chile failed to reach the highest level.
“There’s hardly anyone from my generation who played at that World Cup and who’s still playing today,” she explained, touching on the problems players had in making their way in the French women’s game. “As for me, it’s always been my goal to go as far as possible and to make it to the senior team.
“That was my dream and I knew I was going to do all I could to make it happen. But maybe there were some who said that football was just about having fun and was not the most important thing. If they made the top level, then great. And if they didn’t, then it was no big deal. Football was not a professional sport then. You had your studies on the one hand, and football on the other. That held a few people back at the time and it was hard to juggle the two.”
Le Sommer never had to make the choice or have a Plan B in mind, such was her talent for the game. Now 27, she has found fulfilment in football, with her experience in Chile showing her where her future lay.
“That was where I started to realise what I was capable of and to gauge how good I was compared to other players from around the world,” she said, explaining the impact of the tournament on her career. “When I won the Bronze Ball, I said to myself: ‘OK, I must be among the best then.’ It reassured me and showed me I’d made the right decision. I’ve always wanted to go further and I started to believe in the France team. I said to myself that now that I know where I am, I can make it. It let me see the level I had.”
That level has enabled here to take part in two FIFA Women’s World Cups, with a third potentially coming up for her on home soil in 2019, and to set her sights on winning an Olympic medal in Rio de Janeiro in a few weeks’ time.
And while she is still too modest and unassuming to acknowledge the fact, the third-best player at Chile 2008 remains one of the best players in the world, further proof of that having come when she was shortlisted for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year award...