After Foot broadcast an archive of Didier Deschamps, then RMC consultant, deploring the absence of risk-taking and play of the Blues at Euro 2008. Daniel Riolo, journalist of the show, is not income.
Despite the large victory against Israel (1-4) Thursday in the Nations League, the French team left a mixed image of its performance. Which once again fueled the After Foot debates on the overly cautious and defensive game advocated by Didier Deschamps. An approach put into perspective by the broadcast of an archive of the program dating back to Euro 2008 after France’s defeat against the Netherlands (1-4) in the group stages. Then a consultant for RMC Sport, Didier Deschamps deplored the lack of risk-taking and the play of Raymond Domenech’s Blues.
“It is totally opposed to his speech which is only focused on results”
In this archive, Daniel Riolo recalled that Marcelo Lippi had replaced a midfielder with a striker when Italy was leading in the semi-final of the World Cup two years earlier. A bold approach similar to that of Marco van Basten, then coach of the Netherlands against France in 2008. “That’s so much the better, Daniel,” Didier Deschamps replied. “That means that whoever takes risks is rewarded. It’s always like that. In the Champions League, if you don’t play, you won’t pass. At some point, you have to think about creating problems at the opponent. You can be satisfied with qualifying for an eighth or a quarter with a little success, but after a while, if you don’t enter the field looking to create problems for the opponent, you can’t, it doesn’t work. At some point, it’s the talent on the other side that will make the difference and that’s what happened tonight.”
Sixteen years later, Daniel Riolo cannot come back from this vision in total contradiction with the game put in place by Didier Deschamps in the France team, according to him. “It’s astonishing, incredible,” reacted the journalist and editorialist RMC. “I see that I haven’t varied much in my speech and what I like about football. It’s incredible what he says. The speech is crazy. Most of them have the same ideas before and after. “
“We talk about vision of football, it’s still astonishing,” he explains. “He even puts into perspective the fact of going to the 8th, quarter or half, the fact of advancing the competition, it is totally opposed to his speech which is only focused on the result. He says: ‘we must you create, that you pose problems for the opponent to move forward and build something that goes beyond passing a turn’ While this is exactly what did to him afterwards, what he criticizes there. finds it astonishing to hear that and to see what he then built at OM and in the French team. The archive is crazy. He doesn’t talk to us anymore and he won’t come and analyze it with him. …”
“There are plenty of coaches who say things (as consultants) and try to do them when they lead a team,” he adds. “There, he defends a vision close to the Netherlands which is opposed to its culture. I love this passage, I had to listen to it twice, I didn’t believe it. Posing problems for the opponent does not is not in his software. He first wants to defend well, not to miss the pass, the defensive gesture to be caught wrong. He first wants to set up the speech.
