Zidane Honors De Miguel as France Squad is Announced
Zinedine Zidane walked into the press room to talk about football. He ended up talking about life and death.
Before unveiling his France squad for the November UEFA Nations League fixtures, the head coach paused the usual ritual of names, tactics and injury updates to honour a player who never came close to the international stage, but whose story had shaken the sport.
Jesus de Miguel, the 30-year-old CD Tenerife forward, died on November 3 after a horrific collision in a Segunda Division match against FC Andorra the previous evening. A routine league fixture turned into a nightmare when De Miguel clashed with goalkeeper Jesus Owono late in the game, suffering a blunt cardiac injury that led to cardiac arrest.
Medics resuscitated him on the pitch and rushed him to the University Hospital of Nuestra Señora de Candelaria in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. For a few hours there was hope. By the next morning, there was only grief.
A preliminary autopsy confirmed accidental chest trauma as the cause of death. Spanish police and judicial authorities have opened a routine investigation into the non-natural fatality, looking at potential involuntary manslaughter and the medical protocols followed at pitchside. It is standard procedure, but the cold language of law sits uneasily next to the rawness of what happened.
Zidane did not try to dress it up.
“I’m saddened by what happened, deeply affected. It even gives me goosebumps, because you never want to see something like that on a football pitch,” he told reporters, his words cutting through the usual noise of a squad announcement.
He spoke after joining Spain coach Luis de la Fuente and Real Madrid president Florentino Perez in paying respects to De Miguel ahead of the player’s funeral in his hometown of Navahermosa. Three powerful figures of the Spanish and French game, united not by rivalry or transfer battles, but by a coffin and a family in mourning.
“Above all, I feel sad for the family. I hope I never see anything like that again on a football pitch for the rest of my life,” Zidane added, pushing the conversation away from tactics and towards the human cost that occasionally crashes into this sport.
Only then did he turn to his squad.
Mbappé Back at the Helm
The list itself carried its own headline: Kylian Mbappé is back.
France’s captain returns from injury to lead a 23-man group into the final international window of the year, a decisive stretch in their Nations League campaign. His presence immediately changes the temperature around Les Bleus. With him, France do not just compete; they dictate.
Zidane will lean heavily on his skipper over these last two fixtures of the calendar year, with France looking to lock down qualification for the knockout stages. They sit in control of their group and now have their main weapon restored to fitness.
The other notable name belongs to a newcomer. Pablo Pagis, rewarded for his form at club level, receives his first senior call-up. No fanfare, no guarantees, but a door opens that many in his position never see. On a day marked by the fragility of a footballer’s life, the sight of a young attacker stepping onto the international stage carried a different weight.
Pagis will arrive into a dressing room led by Mbappé, shaped by Zidane and sharpened by expectation. For him, this window is a beginning. For France, it is a checkpoint on a longer journey.
The contrast was impossible to ignore. One forward, De Miguel, remembered in silence and sorrow. Another, Pagis, stepping into the light. Mbappé, returning to reclaim his role at the centre of it all.
France go into this decisive double-header as group leaders, armed with their captain and a fresh attacking option. Yet Zidane’s words made it clear: even at the very top of the international game, the sport remains one collision away from tragedy.
The matches will come, the goals will follow, the debate over systems and selections will resume. But after a week like this, one question lingers over every player who pulls on a shirt: how fragile is the game they risk everything for?
