Didier Deschamps did not go far from achieving a historic double which would have placed him at the top of the history of world football.
If he fulfilled the objectives set by Noël Le Graët before the start of the World Cup, the coach has not yet said if he wanted to extend his lease in Blue.
Could the immense disappointment linked to the scenario of the final push him to say stop?
His latest speeches, however, do not go in this direction.
From our Special Envoy in Doha,
For Didier Deschamps, the immense disappointment after the defeat of the Blues in the final of the World Cup on penalties against Argentina on Sunday, is up to the hopes he had placed in his group.
It also depends on the scenario of this completely crazy match, which will have seen the Blues almost miraculously hope for a glorious outcome when he had not touched a ball during the entire first period and they were on the edge of the abyss at the pause.
Paradoxically, it was this unexpected
comeback
that hurt the coach the most when it came to taking stock of a match the likes of which we will probably never see again.
“This is what gives even more regrets, he will say at the microphone of TF1 after the defeat.
If we take a third, there is nothing to say.
But it is played on one last occasion in the 120th, then the penalty shootout which is difficult to live with when you are not on the right side.
Listening to him, he would almost have preferred to come out clean and neat rather than like that, after a turnaround which, from our point of view, hot during the match, should have tipped the scales in favor of the Blues .
Paid choices but the black point of the tabs
There is however nothing to be ashamed of, especially concerning him.
Because, on Sunday, Deschamps did not hide, unlike half of his team (at the very least) during the first 45 minutes.
When it was necessary to leave two of its executives even before the break, in this case Ousmane Dembélé and Olivier Giroud, or their ghosts, one still wonders, DD did not hesitate for a moment.
And his choices to bring in the inexperienced Marcus Thuram and Randal Kolo Muani, at a time when the Blues seemed K.-O.
standing, have been as paying as couillus.
“You shouldn't blame Olivier and Ousmane, who have done a lot to get us there.
But there, I saw them less well.
I didn't even wait for half-time, because we weren't going to get there.
It was necessary to shake the coconut tree and make sure to reverse the trend.
We didn't have all our athletic abilities and it happened against a team that was playing in a World Cup final, while we didn't feel like it.
»
Real coaching choices for once, which remind us that the Basque is not just a Club Med GO as many would have you believe.
There remains one point, and not the least, which clearly stains the board: it is the second time in not even a year that his team has been hit during the famous penalty shootouts, after the one lost during the summer. 2021 at the Euro against Switzerland.
However, on this subject, Deschamps never hid it: for him, the penos are nothing but a lottery, a coin that we throw in the air while praying that it will fall from the good side.
For someone so professional in his management of the small details that make the big difference, this philosophy has something to question.
At a time when the slightest technical gesture is repeated until exhaustion (keys, for example, on the side of Liverpool) in order to integrate this into the software of the players, the work of shots on goal upstream of a match is nothing secondary.
It should even be a practice in its own right in the preparation for a knockout encounter.
And if that would certainly not make Hugo Lloris invincible in the exercise, perhaps specific work would at least allow him to learn not to dive half a second (at least) before his opponent strikes.
In the current state of things, it's sad to say, but we had few doubts about the outcome of Sunday's session, knowing that this exercise is historically stamped with the seal of loss for our team of France.
Deschamps by hand
This being said, this does not take away anything (or not all) of the merit of Deschamps at the head of this team in Qatar.
A year after losing his footing during the Euros, the double world champion was able to take control of his team and build around him a tight-knit group convinced of his strength, at a time when few people (including us) saw themselves going far in this competition.
It now remains to be seen what his future will be made of, he who had exceptionally not been extended in his functions before the start of the competition, as was the case in previous editions (Euro 2016, World Cup 2018 and Euro 2021).
With a contract that will end on New Year's Eve, between petit fours and champagne, Deschamps knows that he has his hands on the file since the qualification of the Blues in the semi-finals, a federal objective set by Noël Le Graët.
The latter has also clearly expressed the wish to see him continue the adventure for at least two years, until Euro 2024 in a year and a half in Germany.
For his part, unsurprisingly, the former captain of France 98 did not give a clear answer on this subject after the defeat.
He simply made an appointment with his boss in his stronghold of Guingamp, quiet, in the countryside, to take stock.
"Even if the result had been the opposite?"
I would not have given an answer today, he assured.
I will have an appointment with my president at the beginning of the year, you will know.
If you want our opinion, we already know.
A past master in the art of communication, Deschamps is not the type to drop sentences in spite of himself.
Therefore, when he tells us on the eve of France-Argentina that he feels “good, very good even” in his position, no need to have done a doctorate in SD to understand the underlying idea.
A month before leaving for the World Cup, he had also assured the newspaper L'Equipe that he still needed the "adrenaline" inherent in this coaching position.
A new case named Benzema?
If he were to extend, another question will quickly arise, that of the management of the Benzema case, which our colleagues from
L'Equipe
have been cold with him since his mystery exfiltration from Doha, at six in the morning, while all Madrid's teammates, apart from Marcus Thuram, were sound asleep.
The player would not have liked to be shown the door so quickly when he thought for his part that he could stay and treat his injury in Qatar while, on the staff side, we would have been skeptical as to the sincerity of KB9 about of his actual physical condition on his arrival in Clairefontaine at the beginning of November.
And Benzema's enigmatic posts on Instagram in recent days clearly do not point to a second reconciliation between the two men.
If this were to extend, it is therefore not sure that we would see the Madrilenian again soon in Blue, he who celebrates these 35 springs this Monday.
Especially since the course of his group at the World Cup proved to the coach if he still needed it that he could very well do without him to go far in a big competition.
For the moment all this is only a guess, see you in January for the first answers.
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Didier Deschamps
