Since France arrived at their World Cup base in Boston last week they have been a regular source of fascination for locals. Crowds of mostly young people have formed outside Les Bleus’ downtown hotel to cheer the team as they leave for training. All the players are met with pleas for waves and autographs, but the roar that meets Kylian Mbappé is of a different order altogether.
Mbappé is one of a small number of contemporary footballers whose names have cut through with the US public (though he is not yet a mononym, unlike Messi). As France begin their quest for a third World Cup he is inevitably the focus back home too, not least after giving an interview to Le Parisien at the weekend in which he denied ambitions of one day becoming President of France, saying: “I’m hated enough as it is!”
For Didier Deschamps, the question of how to handle the Mbappé phenomenon is one of many that require striking a delicate balance. Fortunately, the 57 year-old has some experience in the demands and contradictions of leading a top international team. Speaking on the eve of their Group I opener against Senegal, with all the extra distractions of 2002 and all that, the French head coach was set on turning down the temperature.
Deschamps has been steadfast in his support for his captain in the buildup to the tournament as Mbappé’s public opposition to far right politics in France has led to criticism from figures such as Michel Platini. Mbappé was not present at France’s pre-match press conference, with N’Golo Kanté speaking instead. Deschamps denied this had anything to do with any public remarks or controversy, but also said: “My priority is to protect my players.”
Asked whether the extent of Mbappé’s fame meant he had to take a different approach to managing him, Deschamps did not demur. “I speak to [Mbappé] very often and he’s a world-famous player even in the US but it’s his life,” he said. “He manages himself. Kylian is Kylian. The younger generation, the less younger, love him everywhere in the world, but that doesn’t mean he’s not normal when he plays and when he’s in the group. This has got nothing to do with why he is not here today.”
Only four members of the squad that won the World Cup in 2018 remain, Mbappé and Kanté among them. Another is the reigning Ballon d’Or Ousmane Dembélé who is also the focus of pre-tournament expectations, with the hope he can bring his club form to the international stage, where he has seven goals from 59 caps. Here, the messaging from Deschamps is different, as he chose to lower any pressure on the Paris Saint-Germain forward. “Ousmane is concerned and concentrated like all the other players, but there clearly is a desire to be very good and to be decisive, just like he is regularly with his club, PSG,” he said.
Dembélé has been given extra time to recover from last month’s Champions League final, with Deschamps adding intriguingly that his place in the team against Senegal would be dependent on “physical and probably more importantly psychological” considerations. “If he’s at his top level it will be a plus for the French squad,” he said.
All the individual deflections add up to a cumulative approach from Deschamps as he enters his final tournament as French head coach: he wants to dial down any suggestions that his team are the favourites to win this World Cup. “France has the ability to win … but so do six or seven other nations,” he said. “The way there is going to be hard. Of course, France has high-level potential because of the results it has produced over the last two World Cups. We’ve also got many high-quality players for whom this will be their first World Cup. And so I don’t want to paint the French squad as better than the others.”
Deschamps eventually left the bowels of the New York/New Jersey Stadium looking relaxed, and feigned shock when told in parting that his training session that afternoon would be, briefly, open to the media. Much of his team may not have seen anything like this World Cup before, but the coach and his key lieutenants are accustomed to the scrutiny.