If we didn’t meet him at a press conference, we had not been able to question Didier Deschamps as part of our article on the hellish pace of international footballers, after the announcement of the insane schedule cobbled together in 2022 to make room for the World Cup in Qatar . It is now done after the passage of the coach in front of the press, Thursday, when the announcement of the list of 23 for the two upcoming meetings of the France team.
Unsurprisingly, he only moderately appreciates knowing that the Blues will only be available to him a week (!) Before the start of the competition. “Like all coaches, I suffer from the calendar. The only periods [de préparation] that we have are each time a little smaller. There it is reduced to the strict minimum, knowing that we do not yet know the draw, the date of the first matches of each team, and that there will be an obligation to be on site four or five days before the first match. … ”, He breathed, joining the mimicry (disillusioned) to the word.
Don’t talk to him about “preparation”
The 98 world champion also spoke of “additional complications for all coaches” facing this calendar without tail or head. “For those who will start [le Mondial] on Monday or Tuesday, it will be practically impossible to make even a friendly match. The players will certainly not be halfway through their season, but they will have played one last club game the weekend before the start of the competition… We are all in the same boat, but it is far from ideal to prepare for a competition of this style. “
For Deschamps, there is no question of even talking about preparation. “No coach has thought of making a preparation since there will be none,” he says with a raised eyebrow. It is necessarily restrictive, it is reductive, I regret it. I know that making calendars is extremely complicated, but that we have at least two weeks [de préparation] would have seemed like a bare minimum. Now it’s like that, we know it, you know it. I’m not going to say that it makes me smile, we will adapt, but it’s far from ideal for the players. “