Everything about Didier Deschamps totally explained
Didier Deschamps (French; ) (born
15 October 1968 in
Bayonne), also known as The Water Carrier ("le porteur d'eau"), is a former
French football player who captained
France to victories in the
1998 FIFA World Cup and
Euro 2000.
Club career
Deschamps started his football career at an amateur club,
Aviron Bayonnais whilst still at school. His potential was spotted by scouts from
Nantes, for whom he signed in April
1983. Deschamps made his league debut on
27 September 1985.
Transferred to
Olympique Marseille in
1989, Deschamps spent a season with
Bordeaux in
1990 before returning to Marseille. In this second spell with Marseille Deschamps gained his first honours. As well as winning two French league titles in
1991 and
1992, Deschamps was part of the Marseille team which became the first, (and so far only) French winners of the
UEFA Champions League in
1993. He is the youngest captain ever to lead his team to the Champions League title which also made club and national teammate
Fabien Barthez the youngest goalkeeper to win.
In
1994, Deschamps joined Italian giants
Juventus, with whom he won three
Serie A titles, one
Italian Cup, two
Italian Supercups, his second Champions League title, and an
Intercontinental Cup.
After Juventus, Deschamps spent a season in England with
Chelsea, winning the
FA Cup. He finished his playing career in Spain, spending a season with
Valencia before retiring in
2001.
International career
Receiving his first international call-up from
Michel Platini in
1989 (on
April 29 against
Yugoslavia), Deschamps started his international career in what was a dark time for the French team as they failed to qualify for the
World Cup in both 1990 and 1994.
When new team coach
Aimé Jacquet began to rebuild the team for
Euro 96, he initially selected
Manchester United star
Eric Cantona as captain. After Cantona earned a year-long suspension in January 1995, the makeup of the team changed dramatically, with veterans Cantona,
Jean-Pierre Papin, and
David Ginola being dropped in favour of younger players such as
Zinedine Zidane. Deschamps, as one of the few remaining veterans, was chosen to lead what would be later be called the "Golden Generation". He first captained France in 1996 in a friendly match against
Germany as a warmup for Euro 96. During that tournament, held in England, he led them all the way to the semi-finals, their best finish in an international tournament since the
1986 FIFA World Cup.
In
1998, Deschamps captained France as they won
1998 FIFA World Cup on home soil in Paris, holding an integral role in the team. Propelled by the momentum of this triumph, Deschamps also captained France as they won
Euro 2000, giving them the distinction of being the first national team to hold both the World Cup and Euro titles since
West Germany did so in 1974. France held the top position in the FIFA World Rankings system from 2001-2002.
Following the tournament Deschamps announced his retirement from international football, making his second last appearance in a ceremonial match against a
FIFA XI in August 2000, which resulted in 5-1 vicotry. His final appearance was against England. At the time of his retirement Deschamps held the record for the most appearances for France, though this has since been surpassed by
Marcel Desailly,
Zinedine Zidane and
Lilian Thuram. In total, Deschamps earned 103 caps and scored four goals. Deschamps was named by
Pelé as one of the
top 125 greatest living footballers in March
2004.
Deschamps was once - derisively - described by Cantona as "the water-carrier" by which Cantona meant that Deschamps only existed to pass the ball to "more talented" players.
Coaching career
Monaco
After retiring as a player, he went into football management. He was the head coach of
AS Monaco in France's
Ligue 1, leading Monaco to the French League Cup title in 2002/2003 and to its first
UEFA Champions League final in 2004. He resigned on
19 September 2005 after a poor start to the season, and disagreement with club's president.
Juventus
On
July 10 2006, Deschamps was named head coach of
Juventus, after
Fabio Capello resigned in the wake of the
match-fixing scandal.
Deschamps' first game in charge of Juventus was highly successful when Juventus beat Alessandria 8-0. But poor results followed after Juventus was knocked out in the 3rd round of the Coppa Italia and the 1-1 draw at Rimini on the first day of the league season. But the following 3 games in which Juventus beat Vicenza 2-1, Crotone 0-3, and Modena 4-0 made it look like Deschamps had everything under control.
Also Deschamps helped Juventus to win their first competition since being relegated (due to the match fixing scandal) which was the
Birra Moretti Cup in which Juventus beat Inter Milan 1-0 and Napoli in a penalty shoot out. He led Juventus to its return to
Serie A, which was confirmed on
May 19 2007 with a 5-1 away win at
Arezzo. On
May 26, several media announced Deschamps had resigned as Juventus head coach following several clashes with the society ; this was however denied by Juventus itself a few hours later.Later that evening after the game against
Mantova which confirmed Juve as Serie B champions, Deschamps confirmed to the media that he'd indeed resigned. The news was then made official by Juventus a few hours later.
Honours
As a player
As a coach
Serie B winner 2006-07
French League Cup 2003 with AS Monaco (Monaco - Sochaux : 4 - 1)Further Information
Get more info on 'Didier Deschamps'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://didier_deschamps.totallyexplained.com">Didier Deschamps Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
