His wife Claude, his friends, his 1990s look… Didier Deschamps in the city in 18 photos

He believes he has served his time and accomplished his mission. Didier Deschamps, the coach of the French team, announced Wednesday January 8 that he would leave his post at the end of the 2026 World Cup, after fourteen years at the head of the Blues. And several decades of having won everything: the World Cup, as a player then manager, the Euro, the Champions League…

If his football career is known to everyone, the private life of the man commonly nicknamed “DD” is less so. Off the field, he is discreet. Just like his rock Claude, his wife since 1989 with whom he had an only son: Dylan, born in 1996. We hardly know that it is she, Madame Deschamps, the boss. “It was she who made the decisions for the house or, in large part, for my son's education. Fortunately because I haven’t always been there,” said the coach in 2019 to a colleague from Figaro .

“I have my private life”

But do you really have a normal life when your name is Didier Deschamps? Still in 2019, Le Figaro asked him the question. Response from the principal concerned: “I have my life. With media exposure, but I have my private life, in which I have one thing anchored in me: to protect my loved ones at all costs. Even more than me. I am modest and discreet in everyday life.”

Is Didier so different from Deschamps on a daily basis? “Ah yes and always has been!” The star of the football game was then drawn out straight away. “Deschamps is the public figure, that everyone knows, appreciates or not. Didier, it’s Didier. Namely, my private life, my base, my family life. It has nothing to do with each other, even though the two are intertwined. All the people who can say that they know me, it is only through what I say, what I send back as an image or what I want to let shine through in my function today and that of yesterday on the ground . It's not totally me. Just part of it.” The opportunity to discover the coach in images as you have never, or rarely seen him, far from the field and the sidelines.