Back in February of the current year, Didier Deschamps was given a contract extension as the manager of the French national side saw his contract extend for 2 further years. Deschamps is now the man designated to lead the French squad past the upcoming 2016 Euro’s as his managerial stay will continue until 2018.
Deschamps was awarded with this contract extension after what was an impressive 2014 FIFA World Cup campaign where he managed to guide the French side to the quarter-finals and only conceded 3 goals from the group stages until the quarter-finals.
The French team has a few promising figures which includes the likes of: Paul Pogba, AlexandreLacazette and Raphael Varane, these young players are expected to make an impact with the national side in the next few years and France needs this to happen as they have a tough schedule.
The 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying draw has already been done and France was pitted in Group A where they will be playing against: Netherlands, Sweden, Bulgaria, Belarus and Luxembourg. In this group, Netherlands and France are the favorites of making it through but the French team has been suffering some troubles in recent times.
France sustained loses against Belgium and Albania as France played against these national sides in friendly matches which were played back in June.
Even though these were just friendly matches, these defeats and performances that the French players have been displaying in recent times have affected Didier Deschamps as he took a chance to voice his thoughts and said: “With Belgium we had an opponent that was superior and played a great game.
It was down to their level Against Albania, there was an opponent with more determination. I am particularly annoyed and disappointed because I’m responsible.I choose the players, the systems. I’ll take time to analyze the game but this is not a period that is very favorable to us.We did not have enough hunger, this is not acceptable. I do not judge the players but we were not mentally ready to play a high level game.I will not castigate one player. But they have five, 10, 30 minutes or an entire game, all players must be as efficient as possible and that was not the case.”
Didier Deschamps is hoping that his team can bounce back from this recent slump of disappointing performances and get back in form, especially now that they have to get ready for all the approaching tournaments.