Zinedine Zidane stressed his desire to platform the strengths of his players as the France head coach.
The legendary attacking midfielder has waited in the wings for the role after his second spell at Real Madrid ended in 2021. He knows that he takes charge of a camp with high standards of performance.
Succeeding Didier Deschamps
Didier Deschamps assumed responsibility for Les Bleus in 2012, and the last decade of football for the French has been extremely accomplished.
The team are the only country in the 21st century to reach three successive semi-finals of the World Cup, having lost in the final to Argentina in 2022 and beaten Croatia in 2018.
They also advanced to the semi-finals of the European Championships in 2024, losing to winners Spain, and were defeated as finalists on home soil in 2016 by Portugal.
France have some of the best operators in the world in both boxes, and two Real Madrid squad members among their midfield roster.
Zidane’s own gravitas in the game will gain the respect of his players, but he is well aware of the need to ensure his stars have the stage to shine on the field.
‘The protagonists are the players’
“It’s completely normal that people are talking a lot about me. It’s the next chapter after 14 years of Didier. It’s something new.
“But the protagonists are the players so I’ll stick to my role. They’re very good. I’m happy to have them and to be able to coach this team. There’s a lot of quality and I hope to enjoy myself a lot with this team.
“We’ve got certain things in place, and the idea behind what we’ve put in place is to be able to do some interesting things on the pitch. We’ve had three and a half training sessions.
“We’ve travelled from France to Turkey and we’ll have to be well prepared to put in a good performance, because we’re facing a competitive team with some very good, physical players.”