France coach Didier Deschamps confirmed this Wednesday (8) that he will step down after the 2026 World Cup, an announcement that reignited speculation about Zinedine Zidane’s eventual arrival at the helm of the French national team.
“It will be in 2026,” the coach who led the ‘Bleus’ to win their second World Cup, in 2018, and the final in Qatar, in 2022, told TF1 television channel.
“I’ve been here since 2012, it’s planned for me to continue until 2026 (…) at the next World Cup. It will end there because it must end at some point. In my head it’s clear,” said the 56-year-old coach.
“I did my time, with the same desire, with the same passion to keep the French team at the highest level, but 2026 is fine,” he added.
Under the tutelage of the former Juventus Turin player, France won the 2018 World Cup and the 2021 Nations League, as well as reaching the finals of the 2016 Euro Cup and the 2022 World Cup.
After this last final lost to Argentina in Qatar, the coach renewed his role for another four years, a decision that raised criticism at the time.
The Les Bleus’ lackluster performance in the last European Championship heightened the debate about the coach who, despite this, managed to take his team to the semi-finals.
In recent months, in addition, the coach has had to face several complicated issues, such as the bad moment of star Kylian Mbappé, both sportingly and off the field following an investigation for rape following a stay in Stockholm, a case that was later closed without any formal accusation, and the retirement of Antoine Griezmann, one of the team’s pillars in the last decade.
Know how to stop
Before leaving office, Deschamps has several goals in mind. The ‘Bleus’ will compete in the quarter-finals of the Nations League against Croatia in March, with the semi-finals of the competition in June, if the French qualify.
And then the qualifying phase for the 2026 World Cup will begin, which will be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
“You never want it to end when the story is beautiful, but you have to know how to say ‘stop’. There is a life beyond, I don’t know what it will be, but it will also be good,” concluded Deschamps.
Captain of the French team that won the World Cup organized in his country in 1998, Deschamps is one of three professionals who lifted the title as a player and as a coach, along with the Brazilian Zagallo and the German Franz Beckenbauer.
Deschamps thus confirmed the information leaked on Tuesday night by an internal ‘Bleus’ source to several French media.
The announcement of Deschamps’ end will open the debate about his successor and everything points to the arrival of Zinedine Zidane in the French team.
Time for ‘Zizou’?
The French football icon and 1998 world title star has never hidden his desire to occupy the role.
At 52 years old, Zidane has been without a team since leaving Real Madrid in 2021, the club with which he won three consecutive Champions Leagues (from 2016 to 2018).
“With the ‘Bleus’ it’s not over. I want to, of course. I will be one day, I hope. I want to close the cycle with the French team”, declared ZZ to the newspaper L’Equipe in 2022, when asked about his desire to one day be coach of the French national team.
Another mythical former player, Thierry Henry, who led France to the Olympic final in Paris-2024, is another of the 1998 world champions who could succeed his former captain, but, despite his good image and glorious past, he cannot equal in charisma to Zidane, one of the French’s favorite characters.
