Patrice Evra labels Didier Deschamps ‘the greatest French manager by miles’ as he praises the Les Bleus boss for his ‘”the team is the star”‘ approach… with Karim Benzema being left out in the cold for almost six years
Patrice Evra was full of praise for France manager Didier Deschamps and his ability to build squads capable of winning major tournaments, with the former left-back going as far as to suggest he was his country’s greatest manager.
Evra believes Deschamps – leading his country to a second successive World Cup final – is ‘the greatest French manager by miles’, and hailed his willingness to prioritise the team over star players, with Karim Benzema being left out for six years.
Benzema has been linked with a surprise return to the squad for Sunday’s World Cup final showdown with Argentina, although Deschamps has remained tight-lipped over the likelihood of a comeback for the Real Madrid star.
Ex-France star Patrice Evra labelled Didier Deschamps the ‘greatest French manager by miles’
‘In France we call him the Lucky Charm, but what a manager!’ began Evra, talking to Football Daily. ‘The best quality of Didier Deschamps is to build a squad. He won’t pick the best player, his motivation is “the team is the star”.
‘I played under a lot of managers, but Deschamps gets that naturally. He didn’t pick (Karim) Benzema for so many years, now he brings him back to the squad – he’s just someone who can build a squad to win a tournament.
‘He was in charge in 2012 and I remember after 2010 I wanted to retire and Deschamps called me and said “Patrice I need you!”
Deschamps has taken France to back-to-back World Cup finals having won four years ago
‘I played under him at Monaco in 2004 for four years and he’s just an amazing man manager and he is so humble. He won it as a player, and he won it as a coach, we got to the final of Euro 2016 and we lost the final, but again it’s a final.
‘For me he’s the greatest French manager by miles!’
Karim Benzema spent six years out of the reckoning for the national side
Since taking over the French national team in 2012, Deschamps has taken Les Bleus to three major finals, a quarter-finals and a round of 16 in a dominant ten-year period for the side.
He has a chance to guide his side to back-to-back World Cup wins for the first time since Brazil in 1962 – a feat which would surely rank him among the all-time great international managers.
And whilst he is blessed with a seemingly incessant stream of world-class young French stars playing at the highest level, he has consistently been called upon to sift through the array of names at his disposal to put together a cohesive team.
The absence of Benzema perhaps best exemplifies this. The French No 9 has for a while been one of Europe’s leading marksmen but has been left out for six years in favour of Olivier Giroud due to the role he plays in the squad.
Success in Qatar will make him statistically France’s most successful manager, with no other coach winning two major honours, although he will have to beat Lionel Messi to get there, the man many consider to be the best player on the planet.
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