The decision was expected and was no longer a mystery. The Executive Committee of the French Football Federation (FFF) unanimously extended the contract of coach Didier Deschamps to the World Cup 2022 in Qatar on Tuesday (December 10th), where the Blues will try to keep their crown, the team learned. Agence France-Presse (AFP) from a source close to the file.
The decision concerning the 51-year-old technician, who arrived in the summer of 2012 at the head of the France team and whose contract expired after the Euro-2020, will be formalized in the afternoon on the occasion of a press conference at the Paris headquarters of the FFF in the presence of President Noël Le Graët and former captain of the Blues, winner of the World Cup in 1998 as a player and in 2018 as coach.
"If he qualifies for the Euro, yes, it will be extended. When one is qualified, I always give two more years. It gives a security", warned Christmas Le Graet, the president of the FFF, a few weeks ago.
Sunday, November 17, the coach of the Blues had closed the qualifying phase for Euro 2020 with a match in Albania, which had confirmed the qualification of the French team for this competition.
On this occasion, Didier deschamps had also reached the threshold of 100 games on the bench of the national team.
Noël Le Graët, who has been president of the FFF since 2011, has always supported the coach. Even in the most complicated moments. As in November 2013, before the dam came back victorious (3-0 after a 2-0 defeat in the first leg) against Ukraine, synonymous with qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Or when Didier Deschamps had for example chosen to do without Karim Benzema before Euro 2016.
The coach has never hidden that he would see a long extension of his contract. " Continue until the next World Cup, obviously, it's not something that I would not like, " he had thus assured in March, in an interview with AFP.
His model is his German counterpart Joachim Löw, in post since 2006, winner of the 2014 Brazilian World Cup. Despite a first round elimination in Russia, at the 2018 World Cup, the boss of the Nationalmannschaft is supposed to stay at the helm until at the end of his contract, in 2022. " This is a good example of longevity and continuity », Deschamps recently said at World about Mr. Löw.
