Zinedine Zidane is now France's head coach. The French Football Federation confirmed the appointment on July 28th, ending years of speculation and handing Zidane the one job he's been circling for the better part of a decade.
He replaces Didier Deschamps, whose 14-year tenure ended not with a trophy lift but a 6-4 hammering by England in a World Cup third-place play-off. That scoreline is worth sitting with. Six goals conceded. A team that reached a World Cup final in 2022 finishing fourth and leaking goals like a reserve side. Whatever patience existed for Deschamps evaporated in that result.
The long wait is over — now the hard part
Zidane, 54, has been the obvious candidate for this role for years. He walked away from Real Madrid in 2021 after back-to-back-to-back Champions League titles and has waited since for the right moment. This is it — though "right" is doing some heavy lifting here. He inherits a squad with serious questions about its defensive shape, its aging spine, and its ability to compete with England, who just dismantled them on the biggest stage.
As a manager, Zidane has one significant data point: three Champions League titles and a La Liga at Real Madrid. That's elite pedigree. International football, though, is a different animal — less control, shorter camps, political noise from within federations. He's never done it before.
France's next cycle runs toward the 2028 European Championship. The rebuild starts now, and the odds on Les Bleus restoring their status as tournament favorites will depend almost entirely on how quickly Zidane can impose his identity on a squad that just looked very beatable. England found the blueprint. Others will have studied it.
Deschamps took the job in 2012, won the World Cup in 2018, reached the final in 2022, and bowed out with a fourth-place finish and a nine-goal thriller he was on the wrong side of. That's the tenure Zidane is following. The bar is set. The pressure is real.
