Rarely has Didier Deschamps appeared so annoyed at a press conference.
While the coach of the Blues was invited this Thursday to unveil his list to face Germany and Chile on March 23 and 26, a question about the preparation of the penalty shootout, for a while, irritated the boss of the team. 'French team.
In question, in particular, the plan to progress on penalties revealed by Hubert Fournier.
The National Technical Director (DTN) of the French Federation particularly targeted the role of the staff and the coach in helping the Blues progress.
“He is the one responsible and everything starts from him,” explained the former coach of Olympique Lyonnais to RMC Sport at the beginning of February.
“The least we can do is talk to Didier about it first…”
Asked to react to this work regarding the penalties, Deschamps did not miss his point by directly tackling this “media outing”.
“It is inappropriate and I would even say disrespectful, but it is not in relation to me.
That's compared to all the coaches, goalies and video analysts doing their job.
Obviously we prepare the sessions,” he scolded.
What was, above all, not appreciated by the staff of the Blues and DD was that they were absolutely not informed of the details of this plan, and also of the way of communicating them.
“The least we can do is talk to Didier about it first…”, we say in the corridors of the FFF.
In addition, of course, to the implication that the France group had never prepared the penalties.
“Obviously it’s being prepared.
All the staff are preparing, including us,” reminded the coach of the France team.
💬 Didier Deschamps: “I find the release of the DTN disrespectful” Hubert Fournier, who spoke of work to be put in place to improve the efficiency of penalty shootouts.
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Enough to explain this sequence of almost six minutes in a rather vehement tone, very unusual for him.
“It can be worked on.
Doing sessions on that… That’s something else.
I spoke about it with Thierry Henry, who took penalties from it.
Psychologically, taking a penalty in training, during a match or in the session after 120 minutes... It's not the same thing!
“, he insisted.
Comments confirmed by the Espoirs coach a few minutes later: “We talked about it.
We talked about the penalty shootout against Italy in 1998 (Editor's note: in the quarter-finals of the World Cup).
There are things you can't control when you're going to take a penalty: the moment, what's going on in your head.
If you haven't taken a penalty at that level, you don't know what's going on.
(…) In history, it is often the big ones who fail, those who seem ready to shoot them.
»
A carefully prepared outing
A position in line with what Deschamps had previously said.
“It’s a balance of power between the shooter and the goalkeeper.
Forcing a player to shoot if he doesn't feel like it, I don't really see the point.
It's being prepared, we can give all the information.
But there is a psychological fact concerning the player which is of capital importance,” explained the former Marseille coach.
He did not forget, either, to cite the example of the Argentinian Lautaro Martinez who missed his penalty, this Wednesday, during Atletico Madrid-Inter Milan, in the round of 16 second leg of the Champions League.
“It would have been nice if he did the same thing in the final in 2022 by shooting over the top.
There you have it, there are things that we cannot predict.
The five players who were planned on our side at the start during the final, obviously with 7 changes, they are not the same,” lamented the world champion coach in 2018.
In front of an audience quite stunned by his anger, Deschamps even seemed to have anticipated this question, with supporting figures: “Since I took office, out of the 149 matches, 18 matches were concerned by a session, we had none that 2 is about 15%, so that means we won them before.
After two sessions, two negative… It’s an observation.
That doesn't mean we didn't work on them.
» This was actually the first time he reacted publicly to this plan to work on penalties.
Raised on the subject and on the criticisms of the DTN, Didier Deschamps never kicked in.
“No, I didn’t feel attacked.
There is no problem, I make sure I understand, I rely on the DTN… Afterwards, it is common knowledge that there may be bad intentions.
But you need experience.
Being on the bench, managing, it’s important.
The coaches of the national youth teams are on the bench.
And I have respect.
»
Also read: 2022 World Cup Final: why did the Blues lose again in the penalty shootout?
A final tackle with both feet off the ground?
Didier Deschamps had kept one last one in his mouth.
“I would like us to talk about other subjects.
Why, for example, do we not have many full-backs in France?
I would like to know,” he said before a journalist asked him again: “We need to see with the DTN?
".
“Maybe,” DD concluded, with a smile on his lips.