Fourteen years, settled in one sentence
“You have to give Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” That is where Kylian Mbappe chose to begin, in an RFI interview published on Tuesday morning, a day after the squad reported back to Clairefontaine. The question hanging over the camp since Zinedine Zidane’s appointment was what becomes of everything Didier Deschamps built, and the captain answered it before anyone had to ask twice.
“What Didier Deschamps has done with the France team is incredible. He made history and put France back where it belongs. For that, we will always be grateful to him.”
Deschamps took the job in July 2012. Fourteen years, a World Cup won in 2018, a final lost in 2022. Mbappe has spent nearly all of his international life working for him, and this summer that stopped being true.
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Two men, one city, no conversation yet
Zidane has had the job for weeks. Both live in Madrid. They have not sat down together once.
“Have I spoken to him since he was named coach? No, I’m going to wait until I see him at Clairefontaine. I think there’s no better place than the château. After that, we’re in the same city, we’ve crossed paths a few times, and we knew each other already. But I’m really waiting to get to Clairefontaine to properly find out what he expects from us as a team and from me as a player.”
The venue matters and he clearly knows it. By pushing the discussion to the château, the France captain has turned it into a squad conversation rather than a private word between two Madrid neighbours.
The bar, set before a ball is kicked
He was not about to soften the expectations either. “It’s always the same when it’s a new start, it’s new, we’ll have to find our feet. We’ll be thrown straight in and have to start winning again, because that’s what people expect from us.”
He comes into it carrying more than usual. Mbappe became the leading scorer in World Cup history this summer, which makes the Nations League an unusual first test for a manager: a forward with nothing left to prove, and a coach who has almost everything still to build around him.
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