French rap, American pop, even Uzbek folk… anything gets 14 men in blue dancing in Tashkent right now. The balletic feet of Abdessamad Mohammed, Souheil Mouhoudine, Kevin Ramirez and Mamadou Siragassy Toure have sent them boogying into the Uzbekistan 2024 semi-finals in what is, remarkably, their first FIFA Futsal World Cup™.

Mouhoudine chats to FIFA about his own form, team-mates Francis Lokoka and Abdessamad Mohammed, the clash against Argentina and realisation that France are better than he thought they were.

You’ve been excellent defensively and offensively. How pleased are you with your own performances?
Souheil Mouhoudine: It’s hard to judge yourself. I try to help my team-mates as much as I can in defence, and make my voice heard to correct any mistakes they make. It’s not always the case. I know that sometimes I lose the ball easily, but I try to keep at least this guideline to make as few mistakes as possible.

Abdessamad Mohammed has three goals and a tournament-high six assists in four appearances. What do you think of the form he’s in?
Abde is currently France’s top scorer, and he proved himself again [against Paraguay]. We needed the great Abde, and he was there. For us it’s normal, as we see what he does every day, even at club level. We know he wants to win. It was only natural that he would score the goal that sent us through to the semi-finals. It’s true that he asks a lot and is very demanding of himself. That’s one of his qualities. We’re also counting on him to get us to the final.

You and other France players have said you’re surprised to have gone this far. Do you think you’ve realised France are even better than you thought you were?
Definitely. We took it one match at a time, and that helped us not put too much pressure on ourselves, and I think that was a very good thing to do. Today it’s clearly paying off, because we’re in the semi-finals. If someone had said to me yesterday, ‘Do you see yourself in the semi-finals?’, I’d clearly have said no, but today it’s a done deal.

What are the ingredients that have made this possible?
The staff put in a lot of hard work to prepare us for each of our opponents. Then there’s the way we play out on the pitch: solidarity, helping each other out, the desire to win every ball, and get it into the net every time. These are qualities we perhaps didn’t have before. Playing against great teams and great players has enabled us to learn, and that has [been] reflected.

You lost 5-3 to Argentina just before Uzbekistan 2024. What do you think of this Argentina side?
They’re a great team. They’re used to being in the last four and being title contenders. For us, the fact that we played them recently is an advantage because, despite the defeat, we were able to see what we did wrong and put things right. We’re determined to make amends. We’ll have to be careful, though, because this match is a bit like experience against youth. We mustn’t fall into a negative spiral, we mustn’t overdo it, and above all we must avoid making silly mistakes that could cost us the match.

Angel Claudino starred in that friendly victory in Orleans and has been brilliant in Uzbekistan. What do you think of Claudino as a player?
He’s a great player, so we’ll have to be careful. We saw that again yesterday against Kazakhstan, when he won the Player of the Match. We’re analysing Argentina’s matches at the World Cup. The staff are giving us all the advice we need on each player’s qualities. We won’t be playing the match before kick-off, so we’ll keep working on our own. We’ll take on Claudino when the time comes.

You’re going to have to mark some superb pivots. How highly do you rate Borruto, Brandi and Rosa?
The advantage is that we played them not so long ago, so it’s still a bit fresh. We have evaluations with the staff for each position, so we can see roughly which players we can defend against. We know that a World Cup match is different from a friendly. We’re analysing them so we can beat them.

Goalkeepers are always crucial in semi-finals and finals. What do you think of Francis Lokoka and Nico Sarmiento?
Sarmiento is a great goalkeeper, very good on his line. He proved that at the last World Cup and in Spain. He’s just signed for a club in Belgium, which shows that he’s a competitor. When I was at Laval, we often watched his matches. He’s a role model for today’s goalkeepers. As for our keeper, we call him ‘Magic Francis’ because on his line, as you’ve seen, he’s been exceptional over the last two matches. He’s getting stronger and stronger, and we hope to have him in top form for the semi-final to go and get this victory.

How do you expect the game against Argentina to go?
The idea is to scare them, to go at it throughout the match, to make them doubt themselves as much as possible. We know it’s not going to be easy. This match is a bit like David against Goliath. We’re going to try to compete, to be in the game, wait for a good play to take the lead.

What would it mean to you to reach a FIFA Futsal World Cup final?
It’s hard to say, we’ve never experienced it. Beyond the fact of qualifying, for us it’s very important to show a good image of France to all the other nations. It also helps to promote our discipline in France.

What’s the atmosphere like in the France squad? What are the players doing to relax and have fun outside of training and matches?
The atmosphere is very good within the group. There’s a lot of mixed emotions. This is a first for us. We’re on a historic journey. We want to keep dreaming, moving forward, growing, and we want to give ourselves a chance of clinching first place. To relieve the pressure, some of us play cards, while others prefer to review their matches and debrief their mistakes. When we’ve got a bit more time, we go out into the city centre and take in the sights. We’re often together, and that’s what strengthens the bond between us. It shows on the court. We tease each other when we’re in the treatment room, we call our loved ones, our families, it helps to relax. We listen to a lot of music. Us French aren’t picky, the slightest bit of music is enough for us to start dancing.