Qt seems far away, the time when a Noël Le Graët at the end of the track spoke on RMC as if he had been seated for several hours with friends at the local bistro, to brush aside the Zinédine Zidane hypothesis at the head of the Blues. “I wouldn’t even have taken him on the phone,” said, in January 2023, the man who was then president of the French Football Federation, after the World Cup in Qatar.
Since then, Le Graët has been carried away by this controversy and a few other cumbersome files, the French team reached the semi-finals of Euro 2024 by annoying everyone, and especially Didier Deschamps announced that he would not go not beyond the 2026 World Cup in North America. Zinédine Zidane, coach of the France team, is no longer a fantasy for a large part of public opinion. It’s a possibility, and even a little more than that, with a known deadline.
The former playmaker, 1998 world and 2000 European champion alongside Deschamps as a player, has never made a secret of his desire to sit on the sidelines. In June 2022, in the columns of L’Équipe, his candidacy could not be clearer: “I want it, of course. I will be, I hope, one day. When ? It doesn’t depend on me. But I want to come full circle with the French team. […] If the opportunity presents itself, then I will be there. »
Not so far from Deschamps
The situation, today as in 18 months, seems quite clear: if Zidane (52) wants the job, he will get it. His aura was already immense as a player and his success on the Real Madrid bench (three Champions Leagues, two La Liga, two Club World Cups, two UEFA and Spanish Super Cups) further strengthened it. It was enough to see him walking around with difficulty in Chaban-Delmas, last May, for the hundredth anniversary of Lescure, to measure his popularity.
This data is not insignificant at a time when the French team, despite objectively unassailable results, is having difficulty filling the stadiums and is bringing together fewer and fewer people in front of the TV. It also highlights a paradox. With Real, Zidane was less a great tactician focused on the offensive than an excellent manager of stars, even if you don’t win three C1s in a row without knowing how to put in place a game plan. But his profile of technician does not seem so far from that of Deschamps.
Almost no competition
There are few benches that match its stature and track record. In recent years, his name was mentioned at PSG, Juventus Turin and Bayern Munich, but these leads never seemed very consistent. In any case less than in 2014, when M6 and Jean-Louis Triaud were very close to convincing him to come and succeed Francis Gillot at the Girondins. It was, again, another era for Bordeaux and for Zidane, who today seems to be reserved for the Blues.
The current president of the FFF, Philippe Diallo, does not “want to enter into this debate” as long as Deschamps is under contract, but everyone has understood the obvious. Especially since the only competition seems to be embodied by Thierry Henry, Olympic silver medalist at the head of the Espoirs last summer and close to the younger generation, but not successful during his previous experiences on club benches.
The best active French coach is perhaps Lille’s Bruno Genesio, but barring a double refusal from Zidane and Henry, no one can seriously imagine him in this position. A stranger? This is not in the habits of the FFF, which only used it once, with the Romanian Stefan Kovacs, from 1973 to 1975.
Such slight drawbacks
The evidence that it will be Zidane does not escape a few slight drawbacks. By September 2026, he will not have coached for five years, because it seems unlikely to see him take a club with the assurance of leaving it in a season and a half. The management of a selection and its episodic gatherings have nothing to do with that of a club, anchored in daily life, where the link with the players is much more intense.
But all this weighs nothing compared to what already seems to be written: Zidane and the France team will once again be able to write pages of history together. If possible in gold letters.
