France

Agreed.  I mean... I HATE that we play such negative tactics with the talent we have.  But you can't argue the results that he gets. The job he did at this world cup was nothing short of amazing.

Due to injuries, half our team was new and our starting 11 had never played together before prior to the world cup.  Our back 4 had literally never played together.  Rabiot and Tchouemani were never paired in the midfield.  Only holdover was the front 3 of Giroud, Griezmann and Mbappe.  Even there, Griezmann was playing CM since we had no more CMs and Dembele was a (useless) forward.

Also, we had no bench.  Zilch.  

YET. we made it to the final and literally could (and some say should if we took our chances in OT) have won it.  

You can't deny the man.  DD is a top manager.  It's not like Zidane is this super positive manager either with the way his teams play.

I agree he did a great job, but "we had no bench" coming from France is ridiculous. From "our reserves could win the cup" to "we have no bench" in a few months.

Every other semifinalist's coach job was more difficult than Deschamp's.

He has done great but its time to change. 2 WC's with him is enough.

Well our reserves almost did win the cup.   Other than Mbappe, Llloris, Griezmann, Arabist, possibly Kounde (5 out of 7) and Varane (who only played 4 out of 7)….  The rest were reserves starting.  We also had reserves injured too.  

We played Griezmann at CM because of injuries as well.  He was used in Pogba’s role.

Just to be clear, the starters were supposed to be
Lloris
Paverd-Varane-Kimoembe-Lucas H
Pogba-Kante-Rabiot
Griezmann-Benzema-Mbappe

Giroud, Tchou, nkunku and dembele as the primary subs

Le comité exécutif de la FFF a obtenu la mise en retrait de Noël Le Graët de ses fonctions de président. Philippe Diallo va assurer l'intérim.

— RMC Sport (@RMCsport) January 11, 2023

Good. Now I challenge the Spanish FA to make Tebas accountable for his nonsense talk too.

Deschamps won me over at this WC simply by playing such an attacking lineup instead of the negative b4 hand Either way, France will be there again next time, just so loaded with talents all over, plus obviously have Mbappe.

rincon wrote:Every other semifinalist's coach job was more difficult than Deschamp's.

He has done great but its time to change. 2 WC's with him is enough.

Not really. It'd easy to guage difficulty based on the talent on show. But you have to look at expectations. Just making the semis was a plus for Croatia and Morocco's coaches , even though Croatia made the finals in 2018, a final 4 wasn't expected.

I will even say Deschamps as an individual might have had more pressure than anyone going into this tournament  cos the media had already started touting his successor when he wasn't even ready to leave and discussing a new contract.

And it's not easy to say France will be there next time, four years is a long time in football. If u said 4 years ago that bale injuries and all, would retire in 2023, people would call it ridiculous. Neymar went into 2014 as one of the most exciting players heading into the world cup. 2018 he was kind of an afterthought. So it's not always clear cut.

France NT managers have a very clear mandate:  Make the semis at minimum in the Euros/WC (whichever is the next tournament) or you could get fired.

If Deschamps hadn't won the WC in 2018, he would have been fired after the Euro 2020 debacle.  Once he made the semis at this past WC, he was automatically going to get an extension offer.

The raised eyebrows were for the length of the extension.  If you win, you get a 4 year extension.  If you reach semis or better, you get a 2 year extension.  So the fact that Descamps got a 4 year extension despite not winning caused controversy... especially given Zidane's availability.

I think it's healthy to put pressure on NT managers.