“I think you need a private discussion”: Cédric Doumbé provokes Otamendi after the France-Argentina fight at the Paris 2024 Olympics

La bagarre à la fin du match France-Argentine. MAXPPP – Thierry DAVID

Ce vendredi 2 août, les Bleus se sont imposés face à l’Argentine aux Jeux Olympiques de Paris 2024. Après ce match sous tension, le combattant de MMA Cédric Doumbé a envoyé un message sur les réseaux sociaux au capitaine de l’Albiceleste, Nicolas Otamendi.

On Friday night, Les Bleus faced Argentina in the quarter-finals of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. At the end of this electric match, in which France won (1-0), a fight broke out between some players from both teams. But the Benfica Lisbon player and captain of the Albiceleste, Nicolas Otamendi, frustrated, made comments about a French player. MMA fighter Cédric Doumbé wanted to respond to him.

The provocation of too much

“Baldé, Badé… I don't know what… If he wants to celebrate, let him come directly to where we are and we will sort it out,” Otamendi told the daily newspaper Olé. After the final whistle, Thierry Henry's Blues went to celebrate the victory in front of the Argentinian stand, who saw the gesture as a provocation.”He celebrated the victory in front of our substitutes. It's one thing to celebrate on the pitch, with your team. But I don't like that”, added the Argentinian player.

But these words did not go unnoticed and particularly caught the attention of Cédric Doumbé. The MMA fighter then sent a message to Nicolas Otamendi on X (ex-Twitter), inviting him to the competition.

“Otamendi, I think you need a private discussion”, he noted on his account. For the moment, the former Manchester City player remains silent and has not responded, it remains to be seen whether he will end up accepting Cédric Doumbé's proposal.

“It was no longer sporting

The quarter-final clash, played in a tense atmosphere following the recent racist chants by the Argentinians against the Blues, lived up to all expectations in a Bordeaux stadium “which was present from the warm-up, until the end and even after. They played their role as 12th man perfectly", insisted captain Alexandre Lacazette.

After the final whistle, the jostling increased, leading to the intervention of the French staff to extract their players caught in the melee to avoid making too many gestures or comments. In the middle of the crowd, midfielder Enzo Millot went to celebrate in front of the Argentinian bench under the eyes of Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev.

“We knew that at any moment it could start, that during the match, they could tease us, tease us”, indicated goalkeeper Guillaume Restes, author of his fourth “clean sheet” in four matches. "In the end, it wasn't sporty anymore, regretted the Toulousain. There were quite a few things. I wasn't touched, I dodged, I defended myself a little. It's unfortunately part of the game now".