EXCLUSIVE | Jérémie Aliadière on Zinedine Zidane: ‘What Zidane has over everyone else is that he is Zidane!’

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Get French Football News sat down with former Arsenal and France youth international striker Jérémie Aliadière to look back on les Bleus ‘ World Cup semi-final defeat and to discuss the future of the France team and its players.

In this second part, he looked back on Didier Deschamps’ achievements as France coach and looks ahead to his successor in the role – Zinedine Zidane.

It’s a disappointment that we did not reach the World Cup final. But do you think it tarnishes the legacy of all that Deschamps has done for France?

I’ve heard a lot of people in France who criticise and who are not happy. And OK, you can be unhappy with the performance in that one match. But you can’t forget everything he has done. It’s 14 years as France coach. He won the World Cup as a player, he won the World Cup as a coach. The players he has brought in and developed in the French team and the team that he leaves Zidane with, I think it’s still extraordinary. He has done a very, very good job and I think that we must not forget that.

You also need to remember that when you have players of that calibre, it’s not easy to create a tight squad. When you have egos like that in a team, you don’t necessarily take the best players, you take the players who will buy into a group, into a mentality, into the ethos of the collective. And that’s what’s more difficult to manage, because when you have the Ballon d’Or [Ousmane Dembélé], Kylian Mbappé, Michael Olise, when you need to choose between Rayan Cherki, Bradley Barcola or Désiré Doué, you’re leaving a lot of superstars on the bench, and that is not easy. And I think Deschamps was brilliant at man management, he really successfully managed all those egos and managed those players who were perhaps not necessarily happy because they hadn’t played much.

So for me, he did an amazing job with the France team and I hope that Zidane will to be able to continue that and really, to surpass it, he must win the World Cup.

Do you think that Zidane has the qualities to take the baton and what can he bring to the table that is different?

I think that what Zidane has over everyone else is that he is Zidane! When you’re Zidane all the players, even Mbappé, are going to listen to you. That’s how he succeeded, pretty easily, at Real Madrid, winning titles – because the players listened to him. And I think that as a player when you have a coach who arrives whom you automatically respect because he’s a legend and because of his name, you’re like “yes coach, OK, we’ll do that, no worries”, you know? So Zidane will already start with that advantage and all the players will want to be part of his project, to be with Zidane, to listen and to take the team to victory.

So I think that’s an advantage that he will have over others – even though Deschamps is Deschamps and I’m not saying that the players didn’t listen to him, certainly not. But when Zidane walks into the changing room you listen and I think that he will have a very good relationship with all the players.

Jérémie Aliadière was speaking exclusively to Get French Football News courtesy of Wiz Slots

GFFN | Jeremy Smith