Patrice Evra - International Career

International Career

Evra is a former French youth international having played for the under-21 team. Due to harboring in Italy during his development years, he failed to earn call-ups with teams below the under-21 level. Evra earned his first call-up to the under-21 team under coach Raymond Domenech on 3 October 2002 for matches against Slovenia and Malta. He made his under-21 debut in the match against Slovenia as France cruised to a 1–0 victory. Evra was forced to miss the match against Malta after suffering an injury in the win over Slovenia. The defender regularly appeared for the team through 2002–2004 as France attempted to qualify for both the 2004 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship and the football tournament at the 2004 Summer Olympics. France failed to qualify for both competitions, which resulted in the end of Evra's youth career.

Evra earned his first call-up to the senior national team in May 2004 after coach Jacques Santini named him to the 31-man preliminary squad to participate in UEFA Euro 2004. Following the trimming of the squad to 23 players, Evra was not included and subsequently missed out on the competition. Following the European Championship, with former under-21 coach Domenech now coaching the team, Evra was called up to the senior team for its friendly against Bosnia and Herzegovina on 18 August 2004. The defender admitted that he was "very proud" to have been called up to the team. Evra made his senior international debut in the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. He started on the left wing before being substituted out in the 75th minute for Robert Pirès. The match ended in a 1–1 draw. Due to an injury to starter Éric Abidal, Evra supplanted him and appeared as the starting left back in France's first two 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification matches. After being called up for the team's March 2005 friendly against Switzerland, Evra was forced to withdraw from the team due to injury. As a result, William Gallas was inserted in the role as a makeshift left back. Following Abidal's return from injury and, due to Domenech preferring Mikaël Silvestre as the incumbent's backup, Evra went without a call-up for almost two years and, consequently, missed the 2006 FIFA World Cup. In October 2007, the defender explained to L'Equipe that the World Cup snub had "gave me my determination".

Evra returned to the team in November 2006 for the team's friendly match against Greece. He appeared as a half-time substitute for Abidal as France won the match 1–0. After going another year without representing France, Evra began appearing as a regular under Domenech in 2007. On 28 May 2008, he was included in the squad to participate in UEFA Euro 2008. Evra was initially placed onto the squad to serve as backup to Abidal, however, after failing to appear in the team's opening 0–0 draw with Romania, there were calls from the French media urging Domenech to insert Evra into the starting lineup at the behest of Abidal. Domenech relented and started Evra in the team's next match against the Netherlands, which was a 4–1 defeat. In the must-win final group stage match against Italy, Evra started his second consecutive match. France lost 2–0 and were eliminated from the competition. Following the match, cameras witnessed Evra and team-mates Patrick Vieira and Abidal getting into an altercation in the tunnel. Vieira later stated that the video was shot after he got into an argument with a set of French supporters. A day after the team's elimination, Evra admitted his frustration to French newspaper L'Equipe stating "I am someone who does not like losing but I'm not going to make excuses. We had three games in this Euro, we have not won one. It's even hard to believe, to say it's over now".