“I didn’t fall off my chair”: when did Didier Deschamps make his decision to leave the Blues?

It is in 2026 that Didier Deschamps will bow out. Afterwards, he hopes, a fourth and final World Cup on the bench of the France team. Extended to January 2023, in the wake of the 2022 World Cup final lost against Argentina (3-3, 4-2 tab), the coach of the Blues decided to leave his position at the head of the Blues at the end of his contract. “I am scheduled until 2026, it will stop there because it has to at some point. In my head, it is very clear”he will announce, Wednesday January 8, on the 1 p.m. news on TF1, marking the end of an adventure that began in 2012 and crowned with a world champion title in 2018.

“I served my time with the same desire, the same passion to maintain the French team at the highest level. We never want it to stop when there is a beautiful thing, but we also have to know how to say ‘stop’will justify the Basque in the 164 matches played. “There is life after, and if I don’t know what it will be like, it will be fine too.”

Didier wants, at the end of his contract, to turn the page

Philippe Diallo, president of the French Football Federation

Before making the news public, “DD” took into the confidence its president Philippe Diallo, re-elected last month at the head of the French Football Federation (FFF). They talked during the holiday season. “I didn’t fall out of my chair.”tells the Figaro (new window) the successor to Noël Le Graët. This decision “is both responsible and elegant from a coach who will have marked the history of the France team. Didier wants, at the end of his current contract, to turn a page.”

“Obviously these are questions that may be running through your head, to the extent that in 2026 he will have been at the head of the France team for 14 years”he emphasizes. “I especially thought of him, because he devoted, or has devoted for more than ten years, his existence to making the French team shine in the highest competitions. It’s a personal, human, very important moment. “It’s first of all a personal decision to make it public and then I find that doing it in these circumstances, at this time, is both responsible and very elegant on his part.”

“You also have to know how to say stop,” explains Didier Deschamps on the 1 p.m. news on TF1Source : TF1 Info

-

If the timing of this announcement may raise eyebrows 18 months before the 2026 World Cup, co-organized by the United States, Canada and Mexico, Philippe Diallo sees it on the contrary “a new mark of his attachment to the Blues”. “It’s done with a sense of responsibility, then a form of elegance too, because I think he’s doing it at a time when no one expects it, far enough away from the matches that we have in March against Croatia (20-23 in the League of Nations, editor’s note), so as not to harm the French team.”

This will free everyone

Philippe Diallo, president of the French Football Federation

“This will in no way change the performance of the French team, which remains one of the best teams in the world”assures the boss of the tricolor body. “I even think that this can bring additional serenity, because the French team, and Didier Deschamps in particular, have suffered a lot of unfair criticism for a long time from a certain number of observers and now that this clarification is made, everyone will feel much freer.” “This will free everyone, starting with him”he insists near The Team (new window). “He wants to protect the players. This will clarify the situation.”

• 

  Read also

  2026 World Cup: the France team knows its two potential groups

On the other hand, Phillipe Diallo does not intend to say immediately who will succeed Didier Deschamps, while Zinédine Zidane, who dreams of the Blues, seems obvious to take over. “I will not enter into this debate”he sweeps into the pages of the sports daily. “Didier has two years of contract and, out of respect for him, his staff and the players, the question of his succession does not arise today.” It will arise by itself when the time comes.