Deschamps smashed by a locker room executive

Didier Deschamps’ French team has never been up to par in terms of pressing and, during a debrief by the French coach during the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Paul Pogba’s intervention was highly revealing.

Star vice-captain of the French team, but offensive leader of the Blues dismissed since Euro 2024, Antoine Griezmann has, perhaps unintentionally, put Didier Deschamps in difficulty. The Atlético striker regretted his team’s weakness in pressing and defensively during the defeat against Italy (1-3), Friday at the Parc des Princes, in the opening of the Nations League. In addition to a minimalist philosophy based on the final result, the French coach has never been able to put in place effective pressing for 12 years. The attack/defense transition (when losing the ball) is however a crucial phase of play in modern football…

Paul Pogba had already undermined “La Dèche’s” vision of pressing at the 2018 World Cup. During the debrief the day after the first match against Australia – a victory (2-1) snatched at the last minute on an Australian own goal provoked by “La Pioche” -, Deschamps had given his entire group a dressing-down. The three attacking players had been singled out in particular, guilty of not having run enough (especially Kylian Mbappé). This crisis meeting features in the TF1 documentary retracing the journey of the Blues to the coronation in Moscow against Croatia (4-2).

Deschamps didn’t like Pogba’s remark

“In the first half, we didn’t know whether to press when the ball was in the middle or on one side, so we did it our way”Pogba said to his coach during this muscular debrief. The midfielder had then become a world reference in his position while playing at Juventus (from 2012 to 2016) but also transformed into a great leader of the French locker room during the preparation for the World Cup, to the great astonishment of captain Hugo Lloris and other key players such as Raphaël Varane, Blaise Matuidi and Olivier Giroud (especially since the latter two did not start against Australia).

Destabilized by Pogba’s intervention, Deschamps offered a response which rightly certified the lack of work concerning this phase of the game. “We didn’t do it, maybe not enough, Paul. I can do it for an hour, but I don’t want one of you laughing. No problem, you’re the one on the ground.”the coach had retorted. Five days later, France switched from a 4-3-3 (while a 4-3-1-2 had been tried in preparation) to the 4-2-3-1 of Euro 2016 with Antoine Griezmann behind Olivier Giroud. For a much better result.