Liverpool centre-back Ibrahima Konaté has received his first call-up to the senior France squad. An injury to Raphaël Varane created a vacancy, and Didier Deschamps has looked to the Parisian to fill it.
For Konaté, this is deserved recognition after a mightily impressive debut season at Anfield. But if he gets an opportunity, and makes an impression in France’s upcoming Nations League fixtures against Croatia (x 2) and Austria, then it could prove to be bad news for Liverpool.
It had been suggested that the previously-overlooked 22-year-old could consider switching allegiance to Mali, but he may now force his way into Deschamps’ plans for the Qatar World Cup at the end of the year. And so, both Konaté and Virgil van Dijk, the centre-back duo that started the Champions League final, could well be jetting off to the Middle East midway through the 2022/23 campaign.
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However, there is one other important Liverpool player who now looks increasingly likely to miss out. Roberto Firmino has racked up 55 caps for Brazil and appeared at four major tournaments — three editions of the Copa América and the 2018 World Cup.
From September 2017 until September 2021, with his injury record largely clean, he made every single squad. But it’s now been nearly a year since he last featured for his country in the Copa América final against Argentina.
Firmino is no longer bulletproof. He was unavailable for selection in September after sustaining a muscle injury, and having played just 68 minutes in the intervening five matches, failed to win back his place in October. A further hamstring problem would rule him out of the November fixtures, and he’s since been overlooked for the January, March and June rosters.
It seems that Tite has come to view Firmino as dispensable. The 30-year-old’s prospects of joining team-mates Alisson and Fabinho at the World Cup are looking increasingly bleak.
Klopp is more appreciative of Firmino than perhaps anybody else, and so he’ll no doubt view this as harsh. But it could also be a blessing, with another of his attacking options set to get a break.
