Zinedine Zidane is walking into the best possible version of France's national team — and that might be the hardest part of the job.
With Didier Deschamps confirmed to be stepping down after just two games remain, the transition is no longer a rumour. It's a handover. And what Zidane is receiving isn't a project in need of fixing — it's a finished product running at full capacity.
How Deschamps rewired France
The irony of Deschamps' tenure is that his greatest achievement may be abandoning everything he stood for as a player. He was a defensive midfielder — disciplined, positionally rigid, unglamorous in the best way. His early squads reflected exactly that: Matuidi, Kanté, Pogba, all structure and defensive cover, with attacking talent operating within strict limits.
Then the midfield options dried up. Camavinga never earned full trust. Meanwhile, the attacking pipeline kept producing elite players faster than Deschamps could ignore them.
So he adapted. The 4-2-3-1 he now deploys is built around overloading opponents with forward quality rather than controlling them through midfield dominance. Four attackers on the pitch at once — a setup designed to be suffocating in transition. It's a long way from the side that "played little but hit hard." Now they do both.
What Zidane actually inherits
The tactical blueprint is set. The forwards are elite. The defensive structure hasn't been sacrificed to accommodate them. By any measure, France enter this next cycle in better shape than they did heading into previous tournaments.
But that's precisely the pressure. Zidane doesn't get a grace period to build his identity — he's expected to maintain a standard someone else established, then surpass it. Any drop in performance won't be read as a transition period. It'll be read as failure.
France's attacking depth makes them a reasonable favourite whenever the next major tournament rolls around, but the system Zidane inherits will only work if he commits to it fully or finds something demonstrably better. Half-measures between two philosophies is how squads this talented underperform.
Deschamps is leaving on his own terms. Whether Zidane can do the same depends entirely on what he does with the machine that's been handed to him.
