At first glance, it is the duel of the constant winner with the eternal loser: France’s national soccer coach Didier Deschamps was a world and European champion as a player – and is one of only three people who became world champions as a player and coach.
He won 15 titles as a player and ten as a coach. England’s Gareth Southgate has two league cup victories as a professional in the vita. That was it. In the World Cup quarter-finals on Saturday (8 p.m. CET/ZDF and Magenta TV), the 52-year-old wants to lay the foundation for this to change very soon.
The reason for the different image of both in public, especially in their respective home countries, is certainly due to the playing time. Deschamps was practically one of the first modern sixes. A workman who had superstar Zinedine Zidane’s back, and yet also a technician, captain and boss of the team. Nickname: “Le General”. As a picture of his professional career, he was the first Frenchman to lift the World Cup trophy after the home World Cup in 1998.
Southgate was a tough but sometimes awkward defender. The scene that stuck with him: The missed penalty in 1996 in the semifinals against Germany, because of which the football motherland failed at the home European Championship. “I’ll never shake off missing my penalty,” said Southgate when he was still a coach. When he met a monk on his honeymoon in Bali shortly after the missed shot, the monk is said to have greeted him with the words: “It’s you, isn’t it? England. Missed penalty.” And his mother asks him, “Why not just shoot it, boy?”
Similar ways of working
As a coach, he was quite successful with the national team. At the 2018 World Cup, the first tournament after taking office, he reached the semifinals. At the European Championship three years later even in the final. He was blamed for losing that on penalties for substituting youngsters Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford late in extra time. Both failed in the penalty shootout nerves.
In the opinion of many, however, his working methods are not dissimilar to his French colleagues. The French portal “sofoot” called Southgate the “Deschamps from Watford”. Both are rather pragmatic in terms of work, but also allow freedom on and off the field. Both are not classic people catchers, but maintain a good relationship with the players without being too close to them. “I’m not there to be her friend or her father, big brother or grandfather – yes, I could be with some if I had started early,” said Deschamps (54), who was visibly trying to relax in Qatar days.
Special generations
What makes their work so difficult to assess is the fact that they serve special generations. Was Deschamps’ world title his masterpiece or last year’s knockout round his failure? Is the team as good as seen in 2018 or as complicated as in 2021? And is it Southgate’s fault that England have come this far in the last two tournaments? Or him that in both cases there was no title at the end?
Long-time Arsenal coach Arsène Wenger and former England pro Jürgen Klinsmann, heads of FIFA’s technical study group in Qatar, were very positive about the Three Lions coach. “He has great ideas and has drawn important conclusions from the World Cup and the European Championship,” said Wenger. And Klinsmann explained: “I see a lot of progress. They are coming.”
Southgate should normally remain in office in Germany at least until EM 2024, which is how long his contract currently runs. Deschamps’ is about to expire. Some media had already reported that a takeover of Zidane was a done deal. Association President Noel Le Graët made it clear that he wanted the coach to stay. Because: “If you’re lucky enough to have a Didier Deschamps, you don’t knock on the next door.”
