Former Chelsea defender, William Gallas, believes Arsenal defender, William Saliba won’t be a starter for France in the 2022 World Cup.
Saliba has already made seven appearances at senior level for France but Gallas has warned that he is still behind two players in France’s pecking order.
“William Saliba has had a brilliant first half of the season, but I think it will be difficult for him to be a starter for France,” Gallas told Genting Casino.
“Even if Varane doesn’t play, I don’t think that Saliba would be Deschamps’ first choice to start.
“You have [Ibrahima] Konate at Liverpool and [Dayot] Upamecano at [Bayern] Munich.”
International career
On 21 March 2022, Saliba received a call-up to France‘s senior squad for the first time as an injury replacement to Benjamin Pavard to play in friendlies against the Ivory Coast and South Africa.
Personal life
Saliba was born in Bondy, Seine-Saint-Denis. His father is Lebanese and his mother is Cameroonian.
On 9 February 2021, the French Football Federation launched an investigation into a video made by Saliba in 2018 that showed one of his France youth international teammates apparently touch himself in a sexually suggestive manner. The FFF decided to engage their disciplinary commission in order to investigate the situation further; they viewed the video filmed by Saliba as “harmful to the image of the federation & football as a whole”.
