Tactical changes, free pass for Mbappé… how Deschamps influenced Griezmann’s retirement, according to Rothen

If Antoine Griezmann announced his international retirement on Monday, it is partly due to the choices of the French team coach, Didier Deschamps, according to Jérôme Rothen.

Antoine Griezmann and the Blues, it’s over. Monday, to everyone’s surprise, Grizou announced the end of his adventure with the France team. A ten-year adventure marked by a World Cup victory and 44 goals in 137 caps. Between mental and physical wear and tear and downgrading, a lot has been said about the unexpected reasons for this decision. For Jérôme Rothen, Didier Deschamps, through his choices in recent years, has had an influence on his “favorite.”

“The idea came from Didier Deschamps in his choices,” he declared Thursday in Rothen s’ignée on RMC. “The management for two years is not the same as the one he had for years. Even when Antoine was not good, he left him on the field all the time,” remembers the left-hander.

“And who suffered all this? Antoine Griezmann!”

If he dates the start of Griezmann’s decline in blue with the emergence of Nkunku “who had redistributed the cards a little” before getting seriously injured, Jérôme Rothen remembers another turning point: “Kylian Mbappé didn’t want to no longer play on the right. He (Deschamps) told me in private: ‘Kylian, I can make him play on the right but he will no longer defend as much as he did when he arrived. So I put him in a position where. I can animate my midfielder differently.” “You give him a little pass to Mbappé And who suffered all this? right. You’re not playing to his strengths.”

Jérôme Rothen also does not forget the repositioning of Grizou in the midfield, notably when Karim Benzema made his brief return to the selection: “We had to accept that he touches less of the ball, is less efficient offensively but that we looks with the eyes of a recuperator. He accepted this situation but deep down, there were regrets. It was the beginnings of what happened at the Euro (2024). logical is that today, he stops”, concludes Jérôme Rothen.