At the press conference after the presentation of France's squad for the World Cup in Qatar, Didier Deschamps was reminded of the well-known history: since Brazil in 1962, there has not been a world champion who has retained the title.
And all the last European teams that tried to meet the task, failed and crashed already in the group stage.
"I won't let you hurt my morale," Deschamps replied and emphasized: "We face a huge challenge. It's hard to get to the top, but staying there is even harder."
60 years ago, Garrincha took Brazil on his back after Pele was injured against Czechoslovakia and led them to a second consecutive World Cup victory, after a final victory over the same opposition.
It was Amarildo who took Pele's place and Brazil raced to the title with only 12 players throughout the tournament.
Today it is allowed to time 26 and on paper France's options are varied, but the preparations were far from ideal.
Paul Pogba and Angolo Kante are sidelined due to injuries, other players have been called up when they are in recovery or not 100% fit, the stories of the Pogba family have not helped to maintain the social fabric and so have all the Kylian Mbappe plots.
Still, Deschamps believes he can be the first since Italian Vittorio Pozzo in the 1930s to lead a team to two consecutive World Cup victories.
Want to follow the path of Vittorio Pozzo and not the path of the last champions.
Didier Deschamps (Photo: Reuters)
"In 2014 we had 28 days of preparation for the World Cup and in 2018 there were 24 days," the French coach mentioned in an interview with "The Athletic".
"This time we barely have a week. The players arrive after three games a week and a schedule full of teams, and enter the tournament with a rhythm of playing every four days, unlike the tournament in Russia where we played every five days.
You have to pay attention to that and know how to recover players and be careful of injuries, but all the national teams are in the same boat."
At the World Cup in Russia, Deschamps pointed out more than once how the burning memory of the loss in the home Euro final in 2016 affected the team and gave the drive to change the fate two years later. This time He builds on the dramatic penalty shootout loss to Switzerland in the round of 16 of the Euros a year and a half ago as the motivating factor. "Obviously it's a complicated matter to defend the title," he said. "But I've been in this position for more than a decade and I don't hold it to enjoy myself, but to win."
The last four Europeans who lifted the World Cup, flew four years later already in the group stage.
It happened to France after the title in the tournament it hosted, with a goalless crash at home in 2002.
Then Italy and Spain experienced it, and in Russia even Germany was eliminated in the first round for the first time since 1938. True, Brazil reached the quarter-finals in 2006, but among the Europeans?
The last champion to make a reasonable tournament is Germany, who were surprised in the quarter-finals in the USA in 1994. Will France be able to stop the dismal streak and avoid following the unfortunate path of the previous champions?
France 2002
was removed and admitted that he arrived exhausted.
Thierry Henry (Photo: GettyImages, Ben Radford)
After the historic final against Brazil, the big celebrations and the Euro win, France also took the Confederations Cup and proudly arrived at the first World Cup in Asia.
She was the top contender to win.
Rover Pearce was sidelined due to a serious knee injury, but Zinedine Zidane reached his peak, after the spectacular goal against Leverkusen in the Champions League final.
But in South Korea, France played a warm-up game against the host, and this game took a toll.
Zidane was injured and later it turned out that he has a torn quadriceps muscle and will miss two games.
In the first round, the world champions were surprised by Senegal in Seoul, but their coach Roja Lemer was not excited: "France will be in the next stage".
Again, that smugness.
What happened?
He finished 0:0 with Uruguay and lost 2:0 to Denmark, which the world champions will meet again this time.
No win, no goal, with one dangerous point.
"We have the best players in the world, but something broke down in the machine," tried to explain Marcel Dessaye, who at the time was well past his peak, like other veterans including Yuriy Dzurkaf.
Yohan Mikko failed to step into Zidane's shoes when he got the chance against Uruguay, Thierry Henry was sent off and after the tournament he admitted along with Patrick Vieira that they arrived exhausted after Arsenal's double season.
Despite the embarrassing results, the 2010 World Cup is remembered by the French as much more humiliating.
Italy 2010
"Fear in the heart, head and feet" (Photo: GettyImages, Ezra Shaw)
The penalty shootout against France in the 2006 final crowned Italy for the fourth time in its history, but the title defense in South Africa was short and embarrassing.
1:1 against Paraguay, 1:1 against New Zealand and then a 3:2 loss to Slovakia, who appeared for the first time in the World Cup and advanced to the round of 16 at the expense of the regional team, who took the lead after a huge miss by Simona Pepe in extra time.
The Italians ranked last in Group 6, even below New Zealand, and for the first time finished a World Cup without a win.
"The worst Italian team ever", stated in "Gazzetta dello Sport".
As far as the media in the land of the boot, the writing was then on the wall.
Marcello Lippi was criticized even before the tournament for his blind loyalty to the players who were with him in 2006, despite the failure at Euro 2008 and the fact that many of them were already far from their level.
He ignored Antonio Cassano, Mario Balotelli and Fabrizio Miccoli, changed methods and formations, and nothing worked.
Gigi Buffon was replaced at half-time against Paraguay due to a spinal injury and did not play again, with Federico Marchetti taking his place.
Andrea Pirlo, who was injured in the training camp for the tournament and participated only as a substitute against Slovakia, claimed that this is the "end of an era" and his midfielder Gennaro Gattuso concluded: "We have scraped the bottom of the barrel."
Lippi took responsibility: "If a team comes to an important game with fear in their heart, head and feet - that means the coach didn't do his job properly. I thought the players I chose would be able to provide something different, but obviously I was wrong."
Spain 2014
The end of the dynasty (Photo: Reuters)
These were the glory days of La Roja: between the two Euro wins, the Spanish golden generation also lifted the World Cup for the first time thanks to Andres Iniesta's goal in extra time in the 2010 final against the Netherlands.
Four years later, the dynasty came to an end.
The Oranges took revenge with 1:5 in the opening game in the group stage and then Spain also lost 2:0 to Chile in Marcana and was eliminated even before the final round.
The first world champion ever to lose her first two matches.
The 0:3 over Australia was for the record only.
In Spain they claimed at the time that Real's players were unmotivated after winning the Champions League and those of Barcelona arrived tired and out of shape after a bad season, but the truth is that the entire team was seven.
The fatigue of the material was felt.
"There is no explanation for what happened to us, we can only apologize to all Spaniards," concluded captain Casillas, who had a bad tournament on a personal level as well.
Coach Vicente del Bosque was surprised ("according to the way the players worked and behaved in our 25 days together, I would never have believed that such a thing would happen") and was especially hurt by the media in Madrid who embraced him for years: "It hurts to hear that they say I am a puppet of the Barcelona players."
He still went on to Euro 2016 and was eliminated in the round of 16.
Germany 2018
"We messed up big time" (Photo: Reuters)
After Italy and Spain, everyone was sure that this time the curse of the champions would be broken.
After all, this cannot happen to the Germans, there is no chance that they will be eliminated in the first stage.
But here, that too happened.
Mexico surprised in the opening round, Toni Kroos scored from a free kick to set up a victory over Sweden, but South Korea stunned in the last game with two goals in extra time after mistakes by Toni Kroos and Manuel Neuer, avenged the loss in the semi-final at home in 2002 and relegated the Mannschaft to last place at home and '.
For the first time ever, Germany leaves the tournament already in the group stage.
Coach Joachim Lev then caught fire from all sides.
The German media called for his removal, former stars slandered and fans wondered why Leroy Sane was not invited.
In this case too, there was loyalty to the previous champions and the problems of lack of hunger and poor fitness surfaced in the disappointing warm-up games.
"We didn't play like a world champion, we messed up big," Neuer apologized to the fans on Instagram.
Jerome Boateng concluded: "Four years ago we were on top of the world and now we are in the abyss. Such a disaster, the 2018 World Cup was not what we expected."
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