2018 World Cup: Didier Deschamps, the French patient

At the start of the World Cup, he broke an unenthusiastic record: that of Raymond Domenech who remained until then the coach covering the most matches of the France team (79). But the former captain of the Blues World 1998 did not experience the same fate as his "illustrious" predecessor. Didier Deschamps is also the first French coach to hoist the national team twice in the final of a major tournament. The courses to bring twice the Blues to participate in the last act of the competition have not been a long calm river. They are built with hard work, meticulousness, patience and a little luck. Ingredients that have also had a large place in the career of the person concerned.

When the president of the Federation Noël Le Graët entrusts him the keys of the team of France in 2012 after a Euro half-fig and half-grape , the mission is clear: it is necessary to give a positive image of the selection to the eyes of the country. The Blues did not need a tactical genius like Pep Guardiola, but rather of Pascal the big brother. The European championship, which precipitated the fall of his predecessor Laurent Blanc, had not reconciled the French people with his national team, where Samir Nasri publicly insults a journalist and Jérémy Ménez and Hatem Ben Arfa are not very involved in the collective

Without moods

Laurent Blanc did not embody this bogeyman enough to start from scratch. On the other hand, when Didier Deschamps held his first press conference as a coach, the words "discipline" and "state of mind" were the two pillars of his speech. The mbad is said from the outset: the game, offensive animation is not the priority. It is first to put the heads back to the place. Gone are the days of goldsmiths' bullets on foot, and the soldiers: Rio Mavuba, Blaise Matuidi and Mamadou Sakho are the strongmen of the beginning of the current coach of the Blues. They replace the ungovernable generation of 1987 who had sealed the atmosphere of the locker room at Euro 2012.

Aside from Blaise Matuidi, still fighting against the Belgians on Tuesday night in the semifinals, the composition of this staff will vary and evolve according to the destiny of the players in club. Mamadou Sakho, hero of the qualifying play-off for the Brazilian World Cup against Ukraine in 2013, is now absent. Moussa Sissoko, more athletically than technically gifted, was not selected for the trip to Russia, as was his former lieutenant in the middle Yohan Cabaye or his relay on the lawn Patrice Evra.

No matter the affinities , Didier Deschamps is ruthless with men when it comes to winning. When Mamadou Sakho is severely incriminated for doping, the former PSG defender disappears completely radars of the French team. Patrice Evra no longer advances and no longer has the level in 2017? The complicity between him and Deschamps no longer weighs anything and the former idol Vélodrome stadium must accept to retire internationally. "He even fired his agent Jeannot Werth while he was a friend of the family. Overnight, he disappeared from his immediate circle and Jeannot Werth did not really recover, "said Jean-Philippe Bouchard on RMC, author of a biography on the coach.

Mi-Aimé Jacquet, mi-Marcello Lippi

Victory is a quest for Deschamps, a journey with stages and companions that can be left on the side. Each match of the French team – a positive draw in the 2014 World Cup qualifier against Spain in this semi-final against Belgium – is a teaching and a stone used to build the building. Errors are memorized, positive facts too. He adopted the same method as his former coach Aimé Jacquet who considered that the years 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997 – punctuated by 0-0 lenifiants and a frustrating Euro 1996 – had been used for the 1998 victory. mentor, he groped to the point of not constituting a real nice team that during this final phase of World Cup. Before this stabilization, all the posts, except that of guardian, were long under construction: from the central hinge to the attack of the Blues, by way of the composition of the midfielder. Umtiti or Koscielny – the injury of the latter helped him to slice -? Where to play Pogba? How to badociate it with Matuidi? Giroud or Benzema? All these questions have haunted the mandate of Didier Deschamps

But the interested party is not only a Loved Jacquet 2.0. It is also driven by a dual culture of winning. This obsession with victory was first nurtured at the time he was the captain of the OM of the demanding Bernard Tapie in 1992-93. Then he acquires Juventus in 1995, with coach Marcello Lippi, a science of defeating Italian version, even more formidable. As a result, he is an ace of attention to detail, has an unparalleled gift to feel the weakness of the other and put all the chances on his side. His goal is to reduce the force of the hazard to a level of sorrow, which explains his allergy to generous offensive play, much more subject to the vagaries of chance. What some observers roughly say "the cat in Dédé" is a cold and almost scientific exploitation of football not to lose.

Also read World Cup 2018: should we love this team of France?

In the head of Didier Deschamps (Editions Solar)