Coach profile
Didier Deschamps
The French journalist held nothing back. It was 0-0 between France and Denmark in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium at the World Cup. Both teams were already through to the knockout stage, but the only goalless draw of the finals was also the worst of the 64 games.
“We have the most boring team,” he said. “We have the most boring coach, play the most boring football and we should go home as soon as possible.”
Two weeks later France were worthy world champions. The Frenchman’s tune and that of his colleagues had gone from minor to major and it was all down to Didier Deschamps. Only then could they go home. In triumph. No one understands how to play tournaments better than the 49-year-old from Bayonne. He captained France to victory in the 1998 World Cup and the European Championship two years later, after which he retired from the national team having scored four goals in 103 games.
Deschamps was a good player, but not a great one. He was neat in the tackle, crisp with his passing and read the game to perfection. That was why Aime Jacquet appointed him national skipper in 1996. He was reliable, consistent and nimble enough to escape injury. He earned the respect that went with the armband.
At club level – with Marseille, Juventus, Chelsea and Valencia – those gifts were rewarded with success in the Champions League (twice), Club World Cup, UEFA Super Cup, Serie A (three times), Coppa Italia and FA Cup.
No question ever existed about Deschamps’ future on his retirement in 2001. His transition into coaching was seamless with Monaco, Juventus and Marseille before he was the obvious choice to succeed Laurent Blanc as boss of Les Bleus in 2012.
After France fell to Germany in
the 2014 World Cup quarter-finals Deschamps acknowledged: “That was our level. We didn’t deserve to go beyond that point.”
Greater expectation awaited back home at Euro 2016, but Deschamps arrived with some uncertainties about his midfield make-up, notably how to draw the best out of Paul Pogba.
In the end, on the biggest occasion of many of his players’ careers, France dominated the Final against Portugal but were beaten by an extra-time strike on the counter-attack.
Defeat was devastating for a man who had known such success on the international stage. But later Deschamps was able to analyse defeat in the Stade de France and use the lessons to win in Moscow. As he said, appreciating the irony, after the 4-2 defeat of Croatia in Luzhniki: “Maybe if we had won the Euros then we would not have won here in Russia.”
For Deschamps, the foundation of victory was laid before the finals in picking the right squad.
He said: “The most important choices were made when we chose the 23 players. You need to choose what you think is the right balance on the pitch and on a human level – and then the players prove you right or wrong.
“Making the right choice is crucial because we spent 55 days together and I can say there were no problems. Sometimes I can be very hard with them but I do it for their own good. Even though they are very young they did listen, so when the competition grew tougher they became more brilliant.”
France were among the quintet mentioned most often as likely winners before the finals, along with Brazil, Germany, Spain and Argentina. For Deschamps, however, the World Cup was not one tournament to win but two tournaments to win. The group stage was half the battle; the knockout stage was an entirely different half.
And that was how he approached the challenge this summer.
France began against Australia, aware that outsiders are always at their most dangerous in their first game when hope and self-belief reign, however irrational.
A 2-1 victory was achieved, awkwardly, in Kazan. Antoine Griezmann scored the first from a penalty awarded by VAR and Aziz Behich’s own goal was confirmed by goal-line technology. Deschamps started with Griezmann leading the line but it was only after the introduction of Olivier Giroud – as an orthodox centreforward – at 1-1 in place of the Atletico Madrid man that France began to look more balanced.
“That was our hardest game,” says Deschamps. “The first group game is always very important for belief and morale. Even though we won 2-1 in the end it was not a good start. I had some not-very-pleasant things to say to the boys the next day, especially our attacking players.
“Our approach to goal was boring, predictable. It was not what we had wanted. There was not enough commitment or determination. Happily, the players reacted for the next game.”
That was against Peru and was also awkward before Kylian Mbappe’s firsthalf goal settled matters. In Ekaterinburg, Deschamps started with the team that would eventually line up in the Final, with Giroud leading the line and Griezmann dropping back and wide where he could do more damage.
With two wins France were through to the knockout stage with a game to spare, and a goalless draw against Denmark left them top of Group C but in the toughest half of the next phase. The French media struggled for sufficient words to describe the contradiction between an awful game and a mission accomplished.
Deschamps had made wholesale changes, partly to protect three players on yellow cards, partly with a view to the physical test ahead. He said: “We have reached our most important goal, to be top of the group. It was not a very exciting match because the Danish team were also OK with a draw and we made many changes.
“This was partly to protect the three players on yellow cards but also because, as you progress in a tournament, you can play teams who have not been able to benefit from this sort of turnover.
“That could be an advantage for us so we wanted to take it.”
Arguably this was one of the marginal differences which turned the Final for a fresher French team against a Croatia side that had been taken to extra time in their three previous games.
Almost as an aside, Deschamps added: “Now we start climbing.”
The ascent of Deschamps’ football Everest began with one of the finals’ best games: the 4-3 defeat of an Argentinian side who produced some of the sparks they never managed in the group stage. Victory will be remembered for Benjamin Pavard’s goal and Mbappe matching Pele as the first teenager in 60 years to score twice in a knockout tie.
But, as Deschamps understood, victory was more than the mere result. The fact they had beaten Lionel Messi and company provided a vital injection of confidence and self-belief going into the quarter-finals against Uruguay.
All successful teams need a little fortune, and for France this was the injury absence of Edinson Cavani. Griezmann provided the free-kick assist for Raphael
“It was not a good start. I had some not-very-pleasant things to say to the boys the next day” Deschamps on the opening win against Australia
Varane’s opening goal and struck the second with the help of a blunder from keeper Fernando Muslera.
This meant a sixth World Cup semifinal for France, where they beat Belgium 1-0 thanks to Samuel Umtiti’s header from a corner.
And so on to the Final against Croatia and ultimate glory.
Here Deschamps profited above all from the lessons of 2016, explaining: “Two years ago, losing the Euro Final was so, so painful. Looking back I realised we put too much emphasis on that specific match. So this time we tried to stay relaxed. The players knew why they were in the final, how they got there. It was just one more game.”
The Final produced more goals in 90 minutes than any decider since Brazil beat Sweden 5-2 in 1958. France led through Mario Mandzukic’s own goal, allowed Ivan Perisic an equaliser and then accelerated away in the second half with further strikes from Griezmann’s VAR-assisted penalty, Pogba and Mbappe. Hugo Lloris, on his way to becoming the fourth winning keepercaptain, gifted Mandzukic the consolation of becoming the only player to score for both sides in a Final.
Reviewing the World Cup, from a French and tournament perspective, Deschamps said: “I was asked several times: ‘Are France beautiful champions?’ Well, we are on top of the world for the next four years, so that what’s important to remember. We didn’t do everything right but we had the mental qualities which were decisive for a World Cup in which we saw that even teams who had the best technical skills did not have enough other qualities.
“I have never experienced a World Cup with such level standards, when the small teams arrived well prepared and with defensive systems which were easier to put together than offensive systems but that could hurt you. So I don’t know if it was a beautiful World Cup but it was very tough athletically and intense mentally.”
Victory in Moscow meant personal history for Deschamps as only the third man to have won the World Cup as a player and a coach, after Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer and Brazil’s Mario Zagallo. Beckenbauer texted Deschamps after the Final, saying: “Welcome to the club of the three!”
As ever, Deschamps kept his feet on the ground, revealing: “It won’t change my life but I am very proud of this. I should invite Franz and Mario Zagallo to dinner though I don’t know which language we would talk!
“As coaches, we have lived the same victory, though both of them were much better technically than me out on the pitch. But my personal pride is secondary – I am much happier to have seen the happiness of my players.
“We won our second champions’ star with 14 players who were at a World Cup for the first time. Eleven of our 14 goals were scored in the knockout phase, four in the Final.
“I’m proud to have put together a group which hurt their opponents so often with ‘surgical efficiency’ as [assistant] Guy Stephan called it.
“It will take time before they realise what has happened to them. Kylian Mbappe is only 19 and I hope he will be a world champion again but one never knows. Twenty years ago David Trezeguet and Thierry Henry were only 19 but they never won the World Cup again.
“These players now, wherever they go, whatever happens to them in life, they will be linked together forever.
“They will never be the same again because now they will always have been world champions and – with respect to all the other titles – there is nothing in football above that.”