BarcelonaIn the small town of Saint-Pierre-d’Irube, the oldest still remember that bright-eyed boy who played in the town hall with his father. Known as Hiriburu in the Basque language, it is a small town in the French Basque Country not far from Bayonne where life is peaceful. A few years ago, an ikastola was opened there to educate children in the Basque language, after years of struggle, since the French authorities do not always make it easy. One of the most beloved Frenchmen, Didier Deschamps, spent his childhood here. The current France coach is one match away from becoming only the second man in history to win two consecutive World Cups as a manager, emulating the milestone of Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo in 1934 and 1938. Deschamps , however, he did not start playing football until he was 11 years old. He used to play rugby and basketball.
In the house where Didier Deschamps grew up, guests were greeted with a sign that read “with Elgar“. A Basque word that would be translated as all together. The Deschamps have roots in the interior of France, as their surname reveals, but they have had their roots in the Basque Country for centuries. His father worked painting the white lines of the roads and his mother, in a textile company. They liked the calm of the inland towns and only went to Bayonne when it was important, like for the birth of their son. Or to go see rugby matches, a very popular sport in the area. The father, Pierre Deschamps, had played in the French First Division with Biarritz, the most powerful club in the French Basque Country. So he liked to see his son playing in the Bayonne team, although he would stop seeing how he was always one of the smallest and it was his turn to receive, when he was caught. The father accepted this sadly as he would have liked to see his son become a top level rugby player. Father and son also spent hours playing basketball, with friends or alone. Little Didier had a streak and more than one expected him to be a great pilot. One of his uncles actually took him to tournaments in the hopes that he would get into it. At school, on the other hand, they trusted that he was an athlete, since he was the school-aged French champion in the 1,000 meters in cross-country. Another teacher made him play handball, he also excelled at it. It was clear to everyone that Didier was very good at sports, but there was a debate about which discipline he should choose. It would be football.
Born in 1968 in Bayonne, Deschamps would start in the Bayonne team and quickly be discovered by Nantes, where he became known as a talented midfielder. In fact, he received two offers from Athletic Bilbao. “I am a French Basque. I don’t speak Basque, but I have relatives who do”, once explained Deschamps, who after becoming world champion as a player in 1998 was received in the town hall of his native town by more than 10,000 people, many with flags Basque The City Council gave him an honorary hat, faithful to the Basque sports tradition, where this hat is awarded to the champions. In fact, the champions of competitions in the Basque Country are named champion for this reason. The word that means who wears a hat now also means champion.
In 2018, Deschamps already became the third man able to win the World Cup as a player and as a coach. The first was Brazilian Mario Zagallo, champion on grass at the World Cups in Sweden 1958 and Chile 1962, and later coach in Mexico 1970, when he came to the bench after the Federation fired coach João Saldanha for his ideas politics – he was a communist, in the time of a right-wing military dictatorship – and bet on a Zagallo who knew how to manage the legacy and gave Brazil its third World Cup. The second to achieve this was German Franz Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup on the pitch in 1974 – as well as playing in the 1966 final – and added a second title as coach in 1990 in Italy , after losing the final in 1986. Deschamps, a starter for 1998 world champions France, touched the sky as a coach in Moscow four years ago now in the final against the Croatians.
The loss of the brother
“He already had a lot of character, he was a complicated boy because he always wanted to play and always wanted to win”, admits Norbert Navarro, who was his first coach in a team called Aviron Bayonnais, where he joined after making a key decision: he would football player. “My father, like so many people in Bayonne, was a rugby man. He was a painter and played with the local team, where he did quite well”, recalled Deschamps in an interview with Canal+ in which he also explained his passion for Basque football. In football, he shone in that Nantes where he matched with players of character such as the Scottish striker Mo Johnston, the Belgian Franky Vercauteren, the world champion with Argentina Jorge Luis Burruchaga or men who over the years would be good coaches, such as Antoine Kombouaré or Michel Der Zakarian. And a young man called Marcel Desailly, with whom he would do much of the journey, until they became world champions in 1998. “You never stop learning. In Nantes I learned to win, but it wasn’t enough,” he admitted to explain why he signed for Olympique de Marseille in 1989, where he would touch heaven by winning the Champions League and burn in hell when the club went being sent to Segona for having bought players from a rival, Valenciennes. “We didn’t need it, we had the best team. But the president, Bernard Tapie, was involved in football and politics at the same time, and you can’t do both”, reasoned Deschamps, who took advantage of this to leave for Juve, where he would win a second Champions League. He would retire after going through Chelsea and Valencia where he arrived with good Spanish, because he had learned it in Bayonne. “I studied it, but Bayonne was full of people who spoke Spanish, then. People who didn’t want to live with Franco”, recalled a Deschamps who quickly began a career as a coach and took Monaco to the Champions League final.
His life, however, has also been marked by tragedy, particularly the death of his brother in a plane crash in 1987, as well as that of two teammates at Nantes. Jean-Michel Labejof and Seth Adonkor, in 1984, in a car accident. Those who know him explain that these deaths marked him a lot and made him mature, but also motivated him to look forward and enjoy each day. It didn’t go bad.
