On the brink of GREATNESS
He was the man dismissed by Eric Cantona as a ‘water carrier’, a World Cup-winning captain who has had to win fans over time and time again. Now, Didier Deschamps stands...
THE journey has been punishing and the doubters quite remorseless at times. ‘Has he done enough?’
L’Equipe asked of Didier Deschamps as France prepared to face Argentina two weeks ago. ‘Has he made the best use of his time? Can he take us higher in the next four years?’ With this France team, there was no sense of a future — only ‘grey’ the paper remarked.
It is one of world football’s enduring mysteries how the man known as ‘Dede’ has delivered so much and yet been loved so little. The captain who hoisted the World Cup trophy aloft for Les Bleus at Stade de France 1998 is the manager who has put them on the brink once again, 20 years on, as the outstanding team of this tournament.
Yet despite such a beautiful symmetry, the president of the French Football Federation was still being pursued this week for answers to the question of whether Deschamps would be getting a contract extension. The prime accusation is that the
49-year-old has taken the joy out of the national team and instilled something more moribund, with the goalless draw against Denmark in the final group game perhaps the ultimate manifestation of that.
It supports the characterisation Deschamps has had to live with ever since captain Laurent Blanc’s suspension from the ’98 final cleared the way for him to lead the side. Eric Cantona, who always felt that Deschamps had poisoned manager Aime Jacquet against him, characterised him as the dull ‘water carrier’. Deschamps has returned that description with interest. ‘I have carried a lot of water in my time,’ he once said. ‘But those buckets have been filled with trophies.’
Well, Deschamps’ utilitarian ways have won through. France only rank fifth for goals scored here, fifth for shots on goal and 12th for possession. But who could possibly say that the side, which promotes qualities of graft, shape and technical excellence, does not also bring electricity, too? Two moments of Kylian Mbappe individualism — his under-the-studs ‘shuffle’ against Belgium and rapier strike against Argentina — were arguably the tournament’s stellar moments.
Deschamps has already made history, too. No European side has ever lost either the World Cup or Euro final and enjoyed a return trip to the final of the other competition, two years later (France lost the 2016 Euro final to Portugal on home soil). Only two men — Brazil’s Mario Zagallo and West Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer — have won this trophy as a manager and player.
His boldness has come in selecting the tournament’s joint-secondyoungest squad, and leaving behind two big individuals — Anthony Martial and Dimitri Payet — whose attitude he did not care for. He has brought only nine of the 23 players who lost on home soil at the 2016 European Championships. ‘Less experience, more ambition,’ as Deschamps put it, back in May.
At a tournament which will be remembered for some of the planet’s supreme individualists departing early, Deschamps has engendered a collectivism, encouraging Antoine Griezmann to carry some water, too.
As Guy Stephan, his long-time confidante and assistant manager, puts it: ‘The important thing is that the team wins, not that the fans fall in love with an individual player.’
What struck you when hearing the players talk at their base near Russia’s capital in the last few days was the universal sense of a collective. ‘It is our great strength to be able to fight for each other,’ said midfielder Blaise Matuidi. ‘We are 23 warriors.’
Paul Pogba — who has played with a discipline and control which should give Jose Mourinho pause for thought — described the ‘pleasure’ Griezmann had taken in helping him to defend. They all speak of Deschamps in a way which transcends the usual platitudes. Pogba’s best football has come under this manager — initially as the best young player at the 2014 World Cup. Deschamps seems to understand him better than anyone.
‘Privately, he (Deschamps) puts huge pressure on him, because he knows that if Paul is too relaxed, he can be bad on the pitch,’ one French source told The Mail on
Sunday. ‘It’s a hard balance for those who manage him. You have to give him confidence, but not too much.’
I’ve carried a lot of water... but the buckets have been filled with trophies
That was Deschamps the player talking. Some of his old team-mates remember what he told them in the Stade de France dressing room at half-time 20 summers ago when they led Brazil 2-0. ‘We don’t let anything go. Not now, eh? Not now.’ He was 29 at the time. It is not in the character of this prosaic, entirely unsentimental individual to look back, though. ‘You must live in your own times,’ he said this week. ‘I have never, never, never ever mentioned my own history to them. ‘(The 1998) final belongs to a lot of French people who lived through it, but the story is different now. I am here with them today to write a new page in history.’