At the Euros, San Diego Wave's Delphine Cascarino is playing with ruthlessness for France

Yahoo

14-07-2025

It began to look like France had bitten off more than they could chew in Basel, Switzerland.
Entering the dressing room down 2-1 at halftime against the Netherlands in their final group game, they were facing defeat and the prospect of being drawn against Group C winners Sweden in the quarterfinals, a team that had routed 2022 finalists Germany 4-1 on Saturday.
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France, who have yet to win a major international tournament, began their Euros campaign with a 2-1 victory over reigning champions England, put four past Wales with a rotated roster, and to top their group, needed only a draw against a Dutch side without the services of Vivianne Miedema. Yet, there they were, flailing from imprecise defending that invited a Victoria Pelova screamer and an own goal.
But then came the second half and Delphine Cascarino. The San Diego Wave winger scored two goals in four minutes to secure a thumping 5-2 win and kept France top of their group for a Saturday encounter with Germany, leaving England to face the in-form Swedes.
Cascarino, who missed the 2023 World Cup with an ACL injury, moved to Southern California last July to play for the Wave in the NWSL.
The 28-year-old embodies the leagues and cultures that made her: her principled French flair is now edged with American grit, both forces swirling within the breezy confidence of a player who has spent a lot of time on the beaches of her mother's homeland of Guadeloupe.
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Cascarino has scored two goals and provided two assists in three Euros games. She also leads the NWSL in assists with five as the Wave sit third in the table at the midseason break.
There were glimmers of her brilliance, her spontaneity on the ball, early in the second half. She roofed a ball that dropped almost too easily to her feet near the penalty box in the 52nd minute, but by the 54th minute, she was gliding over the ball, her stepovers mesmeric. Dutch defender Kerstin Casparij blocked her shot, but Cascarino's guile earned France a corner kick.
Seven minutes later, Cascarino plowed down a Dutch player in the middle of the park and sent the ball on its way to striker Marie Antoinette-Katoto, who did not waste the opportunity to equalize.
Then those glimmers snapped into blinding focus.
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'Sometimes I don't know what to do, so I use my body and throw in a fake move,' she told in San Diego before the Euros began. 'It's a habit, and my body just does what it wants, and sometimes it works.'
That could explain the beckoning hand to a teammate as though she wanted to pass them the ball, tricking defenders into the spaces she secretly wanted them to be as she galloped with a ball collected at midfield. She followed that with a stutter step as she saw off her last defender and cleared the path for a right-footed shot that rippled the side netting, putting France back in the lead.
'You play against Americans who are strong, Brazilians with flair, Spanish players who are so smart,' Cascarino said of the NWSL, noting Spain's Esther González and Midge Purce of Gotham FC, Trinity Rodman and compatriot Ouleymata Sarr of the Washington Spirit among her favourite players in the league.
Cascarino is the only player on France's Euros roster whose club is not based in Europe, which required a tailored assessment of her game and consideration of her workload from new manager Laurent Bonadei. Her colleagues' seasons conclude in May and resume around September, while the NWSL preseason begins in January with a late-November championship.
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'I went to the U.S. in April,' Bonadei told reporters after the Netherlands match. 'I visited five clubs, watched three games, and I saw a good level of the championship. And it's a very good thing to have Delphine very fit.'
It was he who encouraged Cascarino to stay with the Wave in February rather than join Les Bleues in Clairefontaine to train for a pair of Nations League matches against Norway and Iceland.
Cascarino rejoined the national team in May, but a late yellow card in a match against Switzerland (her second in the Nations League) forced Bonadei's hand.
'I preferred to let her go back to her club, to have a good preparation, and to play,' he said. 'It's good to perform with the club, and have a high level of performance. We saw in the second half she's fit to perform, and to make the difference.'
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Cascarino signed with the Wave last July from Lyon (now OL Lyonnes), dynastic league winners who've also won the Champions League eight times. The change, she says, has been a matter of frequency.
'In France, when you play for Lyon or PSG, you know you'll win the league or the Champions League. Here, every game is a fight,' she said.
Ideally, the NWSL draws something new out of European players. Something louder, unapologetic, even a little arrogant. While Cascarino said her trickery is habitual, that her body just remembers, she also knows when to be direct.
Against England, she pointed toward the space she wanted full-back Elisa De Almeida to place the ball to ensure she would not break stride driving to the byline. From there, as she's done many times in the NWSL, Cascarino sent a textured cross into the box that curled around English center back Leah Williamson and needed only a tap from Katoto.
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With 11 goals scored by nine different players and four conceded in the group stage, France have been faultless so far in this competition. Cascarino, in particular, has been immaculate.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
San Diego Wave, NWSL, Women's Soccer, Women's Euros
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