Liberté, égalité, diversity: how France won the World Cup

Didier Deschamps adopted the same winning formula in 2018 as he did in 1998: talent, teamwork and togetherness

By Adam White for Get French Football News

As Patrice Evra stormed from the training pitch and his teammates hid behind the curtains of their team bus, winning the World Cup seemed a very long way away. Any semblance of togetherness had evaporated – not for the first time. France have long been blessed with talent but rarely harmony, as shown by the debacle in South Africa in 2010. Didier Deschamps recognised this when he came into the job in 2012 and, throughout his six years in charge, he has placed the importance of squad harmony above nearly everything else. Anyone who threatens that unity is cast out immediately. France have won the World Cup because of their talent but also because Deschamps’ devotion to spirit has allowed their talent to flourish.

France’s trip to South Africa in 2010 was catastrophic. Florent Malouda was left out of the drab, goalless opener with Uruguay after he had squared up to the obdurate and often incomprehensible coach Raymond Domenech; the French Football Federation expelled Nicolas Anelka after he refused to apologise to his manager, having verbally abused him at half-time in the 2-0 defeat to Mexico; and hundreds of fans watched at an open training session as Evra came close to blows with fitness coach Robert Duverne and the squad refused to leave the bus in protest. It ended in farce, with Domenech bizarrely reading a statement from the players to the press outlining their fury at how Anelka had been treatment.

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