FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Didier Deschamps will fly back to Boston on Saturday and be reunited with the France squad after missing the 4-1 win against Norway on Friday to attend the funeral of his mother.
“I have big thoughts for Didier. We are happy that he comes back,” said France assistant Guy Stephan, who oversaw the win with Deschamps away. “He will be with us tomorrow at training. Our duo will be reunited and we will get ready for the big games coming up.”
Deschamps only spoke to Stephan on Friday morning, but was not in communication with his staff from France during or after their final group game at the FIFA World Cup.
“I haven’t spoken to him since this morning, but I will speak to him later,” Stephan said after the game.
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It’s the second time Deschamps has missed a game after his father passed away in November of 2022 and he had to leave the camp before their 2-1 loss to Denmark in the Nations League.
This time, Stephan and the players were victorious. For the first time since the 1998 World Cup, the French have won all their three group games.
“Three games, nine points, we would have signed for that a month ago. It’s a lot of satisfaction,” Stephan said.
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Ousmane Dembélé scored a hat trick in the win and was set up by Kylian Mbappé on one of the goals. Mbappe scored twice in each of France’s first two group games as well.
Stephan was also asked how this current team compares with the one which reached the World Cup in 2022, and he said the verdict is still out.
“It’s a bit early to say if we are better than in 2022,” Stephan said. “This team is totally different. In our squad, we have half of the players who have never played in a World Cup. We have a lot of young players in attack. We can only see as the competition goes on.
“For now, I don’t see ourselves stronger [than 2022]. Because there is the attacking side and the defensive one. It’s important to have balance and we have to wait a little bit. There were a lot of interesting things in our performance today. We could have scored more goals.
“What I liked less, if we want to be perfectionist, is the times where we took it too easy and gave chances to the opposition. We have to correct that because the further we will go, the tougher the opponents will be.”
As group winners, France will face a third-place team in the round of 32 and based off the latest results it looks very likely to be Sweden on June 30 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
