Deschamps gives France reason to dream again

RIO DE JANEIRO: For a man once belittled by Eric Cantona as “a water carrier,” Didier Deschamps has certainly made a habit of carrying lots of trophies.

French reporters like to ask the now French national team manager, if he was born under a “bonne étoile,” a lucky star. But there is clearly much more than good karma involved here. He was captain of the French team that won the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship and has had success at club level as player and coach.

He has had his character-building journeys through the football desert. But no Frenchman in the sport that France likes best has ever had his kind of success.

“I’ve always hated to lose and I continue to hate it,” Deschamps, 45, said. “But I’ve been obliged to accept it because I also have had some crushing defeats.”

They already may have gone as far as they can in Brazil. Germany, more experienced and more impressive, will be the favorite against Deschamps’ French team.

But there have been some cracks in the German facade, and Les Bleus are unquestionably in a better place than they were before Deschamps took charge in 2012.

But Deschamps right on cue has them back riding the wave, which might seem like more perfect Deschamps timing until you consider the choices that had to be made to get this far.

“What I experienced as a play- er in 1998 is above everything,” Deschamps said. “I’ve never had that feeling as a coach.”

“I never refer to what I was; they know it,” Deschamps said of his players. “They have to create their own story. ” One of Deschamps’ endearing qualities is that he makes no effort to distance himself from his working-class roots or his working-class playing style.

“Look, I was a water carrier, I don’t reject my image,” Deschamps once said. “I didn’t have the pretension to think that I could change a match by myself. Players like me, we did a thankless job. You don’t show a hard tackle or stripping someone of possession in slow motion. But if you add it all, I was always the one that the coaches wrote down on the lineup card.”

One of his mentors, Aimé Jacquet, the coach of the 1998 French team, used to call Deschamps, who is 5 feet 8 1/2 inches , “Trois Pommes” after the quaint French expression for someone short: “As tall as three apples.”

“But,” Jacquet used to warn, “you’ll never take a bite out of him.”

I’VE ALWAYS HATED TO LOSE AND I CONTINUE TO HATE IT. I DO EVERYTHING I CAN TO WIN BUT ULTIMATELY IT COMES DOWN TO VERY LITTLE.

DIDIER DESCHAMPS, France coach