Should we necessarily extend Didier Deschamps without any form of debate?

• The contract of the coach of the Blues should be extended in the coming days, until 2024 or 2026.

• If Deschamps' balance sheet is unassailable, the length of his possible term of office (14 years) is causing some tension.

• However, the debate did not really take place after the World Cup.

We'll say it right away, so it's done: With his record, Didier Deschamps obviously deserves to stay at the head of the France team if that's what he wants.

How could it be otherwise when we speak of a coach who took the Blues twice in a row to the World Cup final, who has been a central figure in national football for thirty years.

Only, should we grant him this extension, which will be decided in the very next few days, without any other debate than that on the duration of his contract?

Does the success of recent years silence any kind of opposition, however minor?

After all, we can also welcome the results obtained while wondering about the way, and what will be done in the future.

A problem for the rich, we agree.

Some voices are raised in this direction, all the same.

Christophe Dugarry was the first, with a defensible point of view but necessarily blurred by his proximity to Zinédine Zidane, who has repeatedly shown his attraction to the position.

“When you lose, you owe an explanation, you owe a debate, at least on the preparation for the match, said the former striker in

at the end of December.

There is an analysis to be made on the game, and on these 80 minutes which are part of the most catastrophic for the French team of the last fifty years, on a day of the World Cup final.

»

“The game”, this eternal quarrel of steeples when we speak of the Blues of Deschamps, between followers of efficiency (Regragui had summarized things well during the World Cup) and defenders of a minimum union aestheticism.

By the way, who has seen the way Zidane won his Champions League with Real Madrid knows that the arrival of the appointment of the former number 10 would not settle this question.

Beyond that, we can also talk about the choice of players, with all these centrals and the lack of full-backs which have reduced the options, or the absence of a creative midfielder with a little volume capable of blowing Griezmann.

The TABs, pebbles in the shoe

Another food for thought, which is surely the only criticism that can be made of Deschamps on the World Cup, is the way the Blues approached the fateful penalty shoot-out.

The coach has always considered that there is no point in preparing for this specific exercise, because the emotional context in training and in a match with 120 minutes in the legs is not at all the same.

He repeated it again during the World Cup when he was asked about the subject from the 8th finals.

For once, the facts prove him wrong.

Hugo Lloris did not pull out a save, or even come close to making one, and it has been twice in a row, after Euro 2021 against Switzerland, that the Blues have crashed in the exercise.

Not having learned the lessons of the Euro is a mistake.

“We were very weak on that, it made everyone weird,” notes coach Jean-Marc Furlan, who knows the coach well for having graduated with him.

He is more of a fan of preparation.

He explains his method:

I often make small games in training, and sometimes in the season when there is a draw, I finish them with shots on goal.

It allows me to see who are the most comfortable, those who know how to change at the last moment depending on the goalkeeper, etc.

All year, I'm attentive to that, and if we ever have to go through it in a match, I don't need my staff to decide on the shooters, I've already spotted them.

»

This had served him for example at the end of last season with Auxerre.

During the play-offs, the Burgundians had beaten Sochaux then Saint-Etienne on penalties to reach Ligue 1. “Those who put them in matches are the same as those who put them in training, notes Furlan.

So it's useful.

“The staff of the Blues, professional to the end of their nails, cannot continue to treat this subject over the leg. 

“Is 10 years not enough?

»

Another aspect, if he continues well until the European championship in Germany, it will be 12 years since Didier Deschamps is at the head of the Blues.

An eternity on the scale of football, a real reign.

With in hollow, according to the prism from where one wants to observe the thing, the idea of ​​a certain confiscation of the power.

“Ten years is a long time, it's true, admits Furlan even if he wants to see his classmate continue.

It is a very important position.

For all the French, the coach of the French football team is the spotlight, up there.

Is 10 years not enough?

The question arises in any case, it is obvious.

»

DD now has 138 games on the Blues bench, Raymond Domenech's previous record (79) exploded a long time ago.

Enough to make and break international careers according to the choices of a single man.

“The important thing is the France team, it is above everything,” the person has always said.

"You can't say it belongs to everyone and keep it for twelve years," Dugarry indirectly replied in his interview.

Except, maybe, when you have results that put millions of people out on the streets.

Sidney Govou, he is not known to be particularly close to the double Z. Questioned by

a few days after the final, he too admitted to aspire to change, emphasizing the next renewal of the group with the departures in a more or less distant future of the grumblers of DD.

“I find that the change of generation to come deserves a change of management and therefore of coach.

If I was close to Deschamps, I would tell him to stop, ”observed the former OL player.

Will these elements be taken into consideration when finalizing the discussions between Didier Deschamps and Noël Le Graët?

Probably not.

The only concern of the president of the FFF is for the moment to find a compromise between his wish not to commit beyond the end of his mandate in 2024 and that of the former OM coach. have control until 2026. The meeting between the two men on December 29 in Brittany not having been conclusive, NLG must according to

meet this Friday Jean-Pierre Bernès, Deschamps' agent, hoping for a breakthrough before the executive committee of the FFF a little later in the day and the federal assembly on Saturday.

No time to talk about Lloris' preparation for the peno sessions.

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