Terrible news for Deschamps and France

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PenaltyKing

Community Member
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Jan 7, 2025
Awful news for Didier Deschamps and his family. Whatever you think of him as a manager, this is the kind of thing that puts football right into perspective very quickly.

France will have to carry on without him for the Norway match in Boston, with Guy Stéphan stepping in for now. It sounds like the squad has the right setup to keep things ticking over, but that is obviously not the story here.

Thoughts with Deschamps and his family. Football can wait for a minute when something like this happens.
 
France will keep going because the staff know the setup but you cant really replace the manager emotionally when hes dealing with this sort of thing and Guy Stephan having to step in is fine on paper but its just not the same vibe
 
I had something similar happen during a cup final at the pub years ago where everyone was losing their minds over the game and then one lad got a call about his mum and the whole place just went dead quiet and suddenly nobody cared who was winning anymore because real life just smacks you in the face like that and you remember football is meant to be the thing you escape to not the thing that matters most and when I hear news like this about Deschamps I just think fair play to anyone trying to keep it together because managing a squad in the US while dealing with that must be brutal and the people saying move on or talk tactics are chatting absolute bollocks
 
Cant even imagine getting that news while youre away with the national team and having to just step out and leave everything behind, proper gutting for him and his family and it makes the whole match feel pointless ngl
 
its mad how football news can just stop meaning anything when somethings like this happens and everyone just has to be decent for once and not turn it into a debate about france or norway or whatever
 
Guy Stéphan taking over is the logical short-term solution. The larger issue is obviously the personal loss, which dwarfs anything happening on the pitch.
 
The practical side is simple enough, the assistant steps in and the squad keeps working because elite international teams are built for continuity, but the human side is obviously the only part that matters here and anyone pretending otherwise is missing the point. You can talk about leadership structures and whether Guy Stéphan is enough for one match, and yes he probably is, but that is all secondary to a man losing his mother and having to leave camp in the middle of a tournament trip. It is one of those reminders that the game runs on schedules and press conferences and all that nonsense, yet life can still pull the rug out from under you in a second and none of the tactical chatter in the world fixes that, which is why these threads always end up drifting from football into the more awkward truth that we are all just spectators until something real happens and then the whole sport feels very small
 
Some of the replies in here are still going to turn this into a France agenda thread and its embarrassing honestly the man has lost his mother and folks are already acting like its a chance to score points about the team or the federation
 
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