Eli Junior Kroupi France national team call-up, Digi Mart USA News (Lorient, France): Called up to replace Marcus Thuram, Lorient-born Eli Junior Kroupi is set to join the French national team for the first time. After the large contingent from Rennes selected in September, Brittany continues to feature prominently in the Équipe de France.
Following the selection of Pablo Pagis last Friday, FC Lorient was already delighted to see one of its club-trained players join the national team. On Tuesday, the Merlus had further reason for pride as coach Zinédine Zidane named Eli Junior Kroupi to the squad.
Born in Lorient, Kroupi replaces another player with Breton roots, Marcus Thuram. Thuram, a former En Avant Guingamp player for two seasons, is forced to leave Clairefontaine due to an injury.
Kroupi has already played with France’s youth teams, from the U16 level through the Espoirs, and scored 19 goals in the blue jersey. This is, however, his first call-up to the senior team.
The 20-year-old center forward has continued to progress steadily. He made his professional debut with Lorient at age 16 in 2023 and emerged during the 2024-2025 season, when he helped the club earn promotion to Ligue 1.
His performances brought him attention abroad. In 2025, Kroupi joined English club Bournemouth, where he contributed 12 goals to the club’s excellent season, which ended sixth in the Premier League.
Kroupi is expected to join the squad at Clairefontaine on Tuesday evening, where he will reunite with his former Lorient teammate Pablo Pagis. Although Pagis was not born in Brittany, he played his first football at the Pont-Péan club near Rennes.
He played at the highest level with Stade Rennais before joining the FC Lorient training academy and beginning his professional career with the Merlus.
Speaking at Clairefontaine on Monday, Pagis said: “I’ve been through a lot. But, like all the players here, you have to make sacrifices.
It takes a great deal of effort. And when these moments come, you think back to everything that happened since the beginning and everything that didn’t.
And it’s true that, when you come here, it is something incredible.”
Kroupi and Pagis are therefore two new representatives from Brittany making their debuts with Les Bleus. The Zidane era has already brought pleasant surprises for the region.
In the new coach’s first squad list in September, seven players who came through the Stade Rennais academy were called up. These included the regulars Désiré Doué, Ousmane Dembélé and Eduardo Camavinga, along with newcomers.
Defender Jérémy Jacquet, who has played at Liverpool since January, is among them. Born in Bondy, he began his career at Rennes before turning professional in 2023.
The 21-year-old already had five caps at youth level. One of the surprises on the September list, Lucas Da Cunha, also passed through the Rennes training center from 2017 to 2019, as did Andy Diouf (Inter Milan), who trained in Brittany between 2018 and 2022.
Adrien Truffert, trained at Rennes and a player there for five seasons, had previously been capped by the senior France team in 2022 and returned to the squad at the start of the autumn gathering.
The Rennes-linked contingent was completed by Estéban Lepaul, the Stade Rennais center forward who was trained at Lyon. Sidelined by an ankle injury for several weeks, he was not recalled.
At the last gathering, all of these Rennes-linked players were started at least once by Zidane, which may motivate newcomers Pagis and Kroupi.
France will face Italy in Milan on November 12 before hosting Turkey in Bordeaux on November 15.
