Terrible news for Deschamps and France

People can say what they want about France and Deschamps but the bloke has given that national team everything and now he has had to walk away because of family news and that should be the only thing anyone focuses on, the rest can do one. The squad is full of professionals, Guy Stéphan knows the drill, and they will cope for a match or two, but that is not the story. The story is a son losing his mother while he is miles from home and having to try and keep it together in front of cameras and staff and players who all know what is happening. Anyone making jokes about it or using it to dunk on France needs to have a word with themselves because that is proper grim behaviour and football twitter brain rot has absolutely fried some people
 
This is one of those situations where the staff structure matters more than the match itself. France can lean on continuity for one game, but the emotional impact on Deschamps is the real headline.
 
A horrible personal loss and no amount of tournament planning changes that, the assistant can handle the Norway match but this is the sort of thing that makes every football debate feel tiny imo
 
France fans probably woke up expecting lineups and ended up getting the worst possible update instead absolutely grim scenes and now everyone is pretending to be an expert on succession planning like its a board meeting
 
I know the officials have nothing to do with this particular news item but it is still ridiculous how football keeps dragging in these cold machine like procedures around human moments and the whole calendar in the US just makes everything feel more detached and corporate and then when something genuinely awful happens the federation has to do a little statement and move on as if the game can just slot around grief like it is nothing and that whole culture of press releases and scheduling and empty formal language does my head in because there is a real family dealing with death and the sport always tries to make itself the centre of the universe again
 
You cannot really fault the federation for the way they have handled this because the only correct move is to let Deschamps go and let the assistant keep the ship steady for the Norway match. The football side is secondary, obviously, but the more you think about it the more you realise how quickly a squad can become a workplace when the human side gets hit like this and then it stops being about tactics and starts being about who can function in the room and who cannot and honestly if anyone tries to turn this into a criticism of him as a manager they need to get a grip because that would be beyond tasteless and frankly some people in football discussions are absolute gobshites when they get a whiff of drama and they just pile in without thinking
 
I dont think its fair to act like France are suddenly in crisis because Deschamps is away for one match the staff are there for a reason and this is exactly the sort of situation that proves it
 
The football side is straightforward enough: one assistant can cover a match if the wider staff is stable. The important part is that Deschamps has been able to leave and be with his family, which is the right priority here.
 
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