Didier Deschamps confirmed that he would leave his position as coach of the France team in 2026, Wednesday in an interview with TF1, believing that he had “has its time” at the head of the Blues who he made world champions in 2018.
“It will be 2026. I have been here since 2012, I am scheduled until 2026… the next World Cup. It will stop there, because it has to stop at some point. In my head it’s very clear”declared the 56-year-old technician during a cross-interview with Brigitte Macron broadcast in the 1 p.m. newspaper as part of the operation “Yellow Coins”of which the group’s LCI news channel revealed an extract this morning.
“I did my time too, with the same desire, the same passion to maintain the French team at the highest level, but 2026 is very good”further explained DD, which will therefore end its lease at the end of the next World Cup organized in the United States, Canada and Mexico, for which France is not yet qualified.
With his departure, the most glorious chapter in the history of the Blues will close. Deschamps has in fact built an extraordinary track record at the head of the France team by winning the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the Nations League in 2021, while reaching the finals of Euro-2016 and the World-2022.
“You have to know how to say stop”
At the end of the final of the last World Cup lost in Qatar against Argentina, the Basque’s contract was extended by four years, a duration which had aroused much criticism at the time. Which did not weaken during the last Euro-2024 due to the hardly exciting game offered by the French, despite reaching the semi-finals.
In the process, the management of the technician had fueled the debates during the second half, between the difficult management of the Kylian Mbappé case, then prey to difficulties on a sporting and personal level following an investigation for rape, since closed, after its visit to Stockholm.
In the meantime, Antoine Griezmann surprisingly announced his international retirement.
Before bowing out, however, there is no shortage of objectives for Deschamps. The Tricolores must play the quarter-finals of the League of Nations against Croatia in March. If successful, they will play the « Final Four » of this competition in June before continuing with the qualifications for the next World Cup, the final challenge for the former captain of the Blues, world champion as a player in 1998.
“We never want it to stop when it’s a beautiful thing, but you have to know how to say stop. There is a life after, I don’t know what it will be, but it will be very good too”he concluded.
