Didier Deschamps is a machine. He won everything, or almost. As coach of the France team, all he is missing is the Euro. This is good, the opportunity presents itself again this Monday evening, with a first match against Austria. Since he is a great football coach, a huge winner, he has good reason to believe that this year will be the good one.
In Deschamps’ reflection, there was never any nuance: I win, I am right. His great strength. But its great limit, too. The problem with “DD” is that he only knows how to do that, win. He doesn’t care about the way he plays, but that’s still acceptable, knowing that he’s built his reputation on everything except beauty. Pragmatic, whatever else.
What is annoying is that the coach that he is does not know how to deviate from his role when the moment should force him to do so. We are only paraphrasing Kylian Mbappé, but we have the right to suggest that it is not only the Euro that is important at the moment in the French destiny, with the legislative elections which are coming.
Even if for the duration of a match, a form of unity can still prevail, France is currently far too fractured for us to say that the world is divided into two spaces which do not communicate: the football of a side, everything else on the other.
Except that on Sunday, at a press conference, in the wake of his captain, Deschamps was unable to control the moment, to take a position, to deliver a clear message. The machine crashed.
Maybe he’s in his bubble, but the theory doesn’t hold true. Supporting it argues more for unreason than the duty to concentrate. Deschamps claims to be “disconnected” – understand that he is not present on any social network – but this is a little too obvious for a man who perhaps counts more than any other Frenchman, President of the Republic and first minister excepted. Although he can still testify to a much longer longevity in the mission of embodying the French flag than these two.
Didier Deschamps has a problem: he doesn’t know how to position himself when it doesn’t concern football. This is perhaps his greatest quality as a coach, but undoubtedly what distances him the most from his fellow citizens. A man like him should carry a message, but he considers that it is not his function as long as his team is not attacked head-on.
So, once again, we are going to follow Didier Deschamps for the duration of a Euro, because it is the French team. A European champion title will increase his track record as a coach. But not the man.
