Deschamps' golden France era to end after another heartbreak, but legacy intact

ARLINGTON, Texas, July 14 : The end of coach Didier Deschamps' Midas-like reign turned into a Tantalus torment as France suffered a comprehensive World Cup semi-final defeat by Spain, but Les Bleus' recent heartbreaks will not tarnish an unprecedented legacy.

France lost the 2022 World Cup final to Argentina and have now fallen to Spain in three straight major semi-finals, at Euro 2024, the Nations League and Tuesday's 2-0 World Cup defeat.

Yet Deschamps, who took charge in 2012 with French football still scarred by their mutiny and humiliation at the World Cup in South Africa two years earlier, will be remembered above all as the coach who led France to their second world title in 2018, two decades after captaining them to their first on home soil.

With a record 20 World Cup victories as a coach, he took France to the global semi-finals at three straight tournaments, reaching the final twice, and established them as international football’s most consistent major-tournament force.

Saturday’s third-place playoff will provide an anticlimactic farewell for the 57-year-old, who announced last year that he would leave when his contract expired after the tournament.

His successor - former France teammate Zinedine Zidane has long been the favourite - will inherit a gifted squad but a familiar challenge: turning perhaps the deepest talent pool in the country's history into the winning machine it should be.

FRANCE RARELY FLAMBOYANT

Deschamps' teams were rarely associated with flamboyance. He was sometimes criticised for favouring balance, discipline and efficiency over spectacle, even when blessed with some of the most gifted attacking players in world football.

But results repeatedly justified his methods.

He took France to the 2014