Zinedine Zidane is finally getting the France job. ESPN reported Monday that the 53-year-old has reached a verbal agreement with the Fédération Française de Football to replace Didier Deschamps following this summer's World Cup.
Deschamps has been in charge since 2012 — thirteen years, a World Cup in 2018, a Nations League title, a runner-up finish in 2022. That's a legitimate era. Whoever takes over inherits both a generational squad and the pressure of being compared to a man who actually delivered the trophy. Zidane will be no exception to that scrutiny, legend status or not.
The manager question France has been circling for years
Zidane's coaching record is real but uneven. Two stints at Real Madrid, two La Liga titles, three Champions Leagues. He also walked out — twice. His last job ended in 2021, which means he's coming into a World Cup cycle without recent touchline experience at club level. That's not a small thing at international football's highest intensity.
Still, the pull of Zidane as France manager was always inevitable. The 1998 World Player of the Year, the man who dragged France to the 1998 World Cup title and almost did it again in 2006 — right up until that headbutt on Marco Materazzi in the final. Some legacies are complicated like that. You win three FIFA World Player of the Year awards, a Ballon d'Or, the World Cup, and the headline that follows you is a moment of madness in extra time.
France's World Cup odds this summer will be shaped around Deschamps' last dance with this group. But Zidane's arrival post-tournament sets up a new cycle — and with Mbappé likely to be at his peak for the next four years, whoever holds that job is sitting on serious ammunition.
The verbal agreement is in place. The paperwork, presumably, follows.
