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Conversation Between 2 Footballing Greats

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Deschamps: It’s impossible to play against Barça ‘in the short term’. They’ve played together for fi ve, six, seven years: their game is second nature for them. When you see the way they move and how they’ve managed to pass on this message to players who come from all kinds of backgrounds, that’s impressive. Elsewhere, a coach isn’t given that time. The policy is diff erent. It’s every manager’s dream, but you’ve got to be realistic: yes, it’s lovely to watch them play, to dream of emulating them — but you’ve got to have the players to play that game. And everything stems from the academy. Coco, at Nantes, when we joined the pros, we’d already spent four years together in the reserves. Suaudeau: Barça are the strongest because their midfi eld is the strongest. Deschamps: The midfi eld battle... Suaudeau: A game is won in midfi eld. Only the midfi elders are able to fi nd the right way to play. They are the animators. They are the inspiration. The more players of that kind you’ve got, the more you can hope to win in the long term. Deschamps: I don’t agree. What matters are the two zones of truth. In today’s
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Page 1: Conversation Between 2 Footballing Greats

Deschamps: It’s impossible to playagainst Barça ‘in the short term’. They’veplayed together for fi ve, six, seven years:their game is second nature for them.When you see the way they move andhow they’ve managed to pass on thismessage to players who come from allkinds of backgrounds, that’s impressive.Elsewhere, a coach isn’t given thattime. The policy is diff erent. It’s everymanager’s dream, but you’ve got to berealistic: yes, it’s lovely to watch themplay, to dream of emulating them — butyou’ve got to have the players to playthat game. And everything stems fromthe academy. Coco, at Nantes, when wejoined the pros, we’d already spent fouryears together in the reserves.Suaudeau: Barça are the strongestbecause their midfi eld is the strongest.Deschamps: The midfi eld battle...Suaudeau: A game is won in midfi eld.Only the midfi elders are able to fi nd theright way to play. They are the animators.They are the inspiration. The moreplayers of that kind you’ve got, the moreyou can hope to win in the long term.Deschamps: I don’t agree. What mattersare the two zones of truth. In today’sfootball, if you’ve got a great keeper anda great striker, you’re not that far fromvictory. Of course, you shouldn’t havemuppets in midfi eld!Suaudeau: I disagree.

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Deschamps: OK, Coco, I know whatyou’re thinking: it’s impossible to fi ghtagainst the collective power of theCatalans, therefore...Suaudeau: Dead right. Barça are superstrongin one area: anticipation. That’s themost diffi cult thing to pass on to playerswhen they’re very good. At Barcelona,even the smallest guy gets his hands dirtyand is to be feared when they try to getthe ball back. That’s where Barça madethe diff erence when they beat Real Madrid5-0. Dédé, that’s the ultimate truth — thatwas my truth too. I’d come to the pointwhen I conceived my attacking game asbased on getting the ball back... and whenthe attacker becomes a defender, eh?Deschamps: They’re fabulous.Suaudeau: And they exploit it. Real Madridhaven’t got this approach, for example.Real defend, and that’s that. Every coachknows what he’s capable of asking fromhis team. And it is in the fi ght to get theball back that a team really expresses itscombativeness. Barcelona are the perfectexpression of that.Deschamps: The most impressive,it’s when the attackers manage to dothe same work as midfi elders, or evendefenders. It’s magnifi cent! But try toapply that in France, eh? ... and theirthree guys in midfi eld, the way they cutthe trajectories of the ball...Suaudeau: They have brought a culture

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of sacrifi ce to a level of perfection.Because it is very, very tiring to close thenet properly. What is Barça’s weakness?How do you exploit it?Deschamps: The most diffi cult thing,when you play against Barça, is whenyou have the ball. Either you’ve got itclose to your own goal, which meansyou need to have the guy who’s able tomake the fi rst pass which will eliminatethe fi rst block. But, three times out offour, they don’t allow you to do that. Orit’s a counter-attack and it’s the samething in the end... the fi rst pass [againstBarça] must be successful and take twoor three players out of the equation. Youneed a guy who’s got great feet and whosees things quickly, because there is notime. You must fi nd the vertical pass thatdisrupts the lines.Suaudeau: Otherwise, they close downon you like a vice.Deschamps: ...and if they feel they’vebeen taken out, they foul. They do thatvery well too. The midfi eld guys take careof that.Suaudeau: When I asked you myquestion, I didn’t have an answer to theproblem! Me, I play the game in myhead, sitting on the sofa, before it’s beenplayed... because we’ve got a right to havefun, no?Deschamps: And it’s always more funwith other people’s teams!

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Suaudeau: Yes, every weekend, I’m acoach... four teams a year. ManchesterUnited and Liverpool in England, Realand Barça in Spain. I try to follow themfrom the fi rst day of the season to thelast. I don’t pick the players — but I re-dothe tactics. And the substitutions.Deschamps: Do you regret not coachinganymore?Suaudeau: Not at all! I stopped withoutregrets, 13 or 14 years ago. I didn’t feellike fi lling in a blank page anymore. You’llsee... I choose my teams for the way theyplay. Which teams would you choose?Deschamps: Barça, Arsenal, ManchesterUnited or Liverpool... and Real Madrid,maybe.Suaudeau: For Real, I haven’t yet seenall that I was hoping for. I’m probablynot objective, because I don’t buy intoMourinho. His behaviour, his quotes,pff f... He’s playing a character who is toounpleasant by far. I don’t function likethat. Hey — we haven’t spoken aboutPep Guardiola.Deschamps: I’m asked, “Are you Mourinhoor Guardiola?” It’s impossible to comparethem. The philosophy of one is expressedthrough a single club. As to the other,you can say what you want, but he wins[in Europe] with Porto and Inter, and hereaches the semis with Chelsea and Real.Fergie is the last guy who can do whathe does at the same club for twenty-fi ve

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years. He changes teams — he doesn’tswap clubs. He does everything atManchester United, from A to Z.Suaudeau: You’d better be on top format his age...Deschamps: He delegates a lot. Hedoesn’t direct the training sessions...Some weeks, he only comes fromThursday onwards.Suaudeau: Oh la la...Deschamps: He’s got a coach whodoes the job. At weekends, Fergie picksthe team and prepares for the game.Sometimes, things that have beenpractised during the week are changedon matchday.Suaudeau: Really?Deschamps: Yes.Suaudeau: He’s the boss...Deschamps: Pep is a coach, not amanager like Ferguson is. He doesn’tlook after the administration sideof things, or the gardener! He’s atechnician.Suaudeau: He was a very good player tostart with, a very intelligent one. The guywho made the fi rst pass from midfi eld.What we’d call a ‘sentinel’ today. Then hebecame an educator. He’s got a plan inhis head, and what’s wonderful is that hepasses it on to the players so well. If youask Guardiola what his idea of footballis, he’ll answer that it is passing. But he’lladd: what kind of passing? And how

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do you manage to play those passes?That’s what gives the idea its fl avour. He’sintegrated what he learnt from the olderguys: football is conceived as a gameof passes. The crazy thing is that thesepasses don’t look extraordinary— butthey always reach their target. That’simportant. You know why, DD? Becausethe Barça players have a mastery ofthe space around them, a science ofanticipation and a perception of thegame as a whole, with tremendousconcentration on top.Deschamps: On top of their technicalexcellence?Suaudeau: It’s because they practisetheir scales all day long. I’ve seen it.Deschamps: Control, pass, control,pass, non-stop for half an hour, everyday, and more if necessary. After that,it’s easy. No, I’m wrong — it’s simple,not easy! Choose the right moment tomake the pass or not, go back: they’rein it, completely. And when one ofthem moves towards the outside, he’snot alone in doing so: the whole blockmoves, the players modulate theirmovement according to the movementof the others. It’s intelligent mechanics,because you don’t see two players in thesame zone, everything is compensated,balanced, which means that the ballcarrieralways has a solution. It’s almostexaggerated at times...

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Suaudeau: Agreed!Deschamps: At times, you’ll see four orfi ve one-touch exchanges four yardsapart. I’m not sure that this is very useful.Even if it’s a way to attract the opponent,to make him come out, and when hedoes, because he’s fed up, tchac! ... oneguy sends the ball behind the back of thedefender. Barça make sure that the ball isalways in movement, because it’s boundto be a problem for the opponent. Whenthe ball is static, it’s simpler: when it ismoving, even within four or fi ve yards, thepassing angles are not the same anymore.This doesn’t mean they don’t keep the ballin midfi eld, not everything is done with oneor two touches. But every time they takethe ball, they turn round and they breakyou down by taking you out of the game.Suaudeau: What’s more, most of thepasses and most of the play are directed towrong-foot you and, physically, that hurts.Deschamps: When the midfi eld has theball, you’ve got the three guys in themiddle, plus the full-backs, and Messiwho drops back. To start with, he playsin the middle, but the fact that he dropsback has a consequence: the opposingcentral defenders do not have a point ofreference any longer.Suaudeau: The passes make thediff erence, but it is also the passes thatcan unbalance Barça.Deschamps: Yes, the vertical pass, like

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Shakhtar Donetsk did so well in theChampions League quarter-fi nals [in2010-11]. That’s when you come backto technical quality, because you’vegot very little time to integrate theinformation and do the right thing. Youneed good feet and teammates whomake themselves available.Suaudeau: When you watch Barça closely,how do they pass the ball? Most of thetime, with the inside of the foot. You can’tsend the ball thirty-fi ve yards away thatway. They use the ground, the pitch...lobbing the ball is prohibited in training. Itwas quite funny when I did that at Nantes.It means that those who haven’t got theball must show themselves, and that youplay in the intervals between the lines.Deschamps: My way of describing this is:below the belt. It’s not allowed to passthe ball higher than that. We often didthat at Nantes on the days following agame, we called that the spiel. I loved itand I still do it. To work on the tip of thetriangle, then learn how to move. That’swhen you see the guys who can swim orwho can’t...Suaudeau: Except that at Barça, theyknow each other so well...Deschamps: They put it in place withtoros: ten players in a circle with two guysinside who try to intercept the ball, or acircle of fi ve and a single guy. It’s torture.Suaudeau: That’s right, that’s the basis

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of their work: rehearsal. But these areexercises which are done with maximumconcentration. Not to have a laugh, evenif it’s fun.Deschamps: Once again, they base theirwork on a philosophy. And when theyneed to, they go and get [a player] fromoutside of the system. But they get itwrong too, as they did with the Swede,Ibrahimović. Maybe he brought themsomething different, but they didn’t stickwith him.Suaudeau: Why didn’t it work for him?Too individualistic? Not at all! Too static!He’s a statue, absolutely. And given themobility of the people around him, thatlooked bad. He didn’t take part in thecollective movement of the team.Deschamps: Coco, he’s still aphenomenon! I had him for two weeksat Juve — he had everything, the skill,movement, the height, the coordination.Then, yes, when he feels like it...Suaudeau: He moves for himself, not forthe others.Deschamps: That’s true. His outlook isnot collective.Suaudeau: Precisely. I’m not telling youhe isn’t good, only that he wasn’t in hisplace at Barcelona, that’s not the samething. In Italy...Deschamps: In Italy, he’s not asked tobe collective, he’s not asked to be anattacker who presses the opponent.

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Suaudeau: Italy is what you were talkingabout earlier: a good keeper and a guyupfront who scores goals.Deschamps: As long as he scores, whocares if he only touches the ball twice?A guy like David Trezeguet was like afish in water in Serie A. Like Ibrahimović.They are both players who don’t needthe others. Whereas at Barça, everyoneneeds the others. Except, maybe, thelittle guy [Messi]... even then. Look at himwith the Argentinian team. Why is it thathe’s not the same player?Suaudeau: Because there are shortcircuitsin the team’s movement. And he’snot used to that. With Argentina, when hegoes right, the rest go left, it’s a mess...Deschamps: With Barça, when you’rein the axis on the pitch, there’s a guy[who is available] on the side; and whenthere’s a guy near you, there will also beanother one making a run from deep.Two solutions, always. It’s up to you todecide when you play against them. Thesolution is to lock the inside, becauseyou’re fucked if you don’t; but youhaven’t won if you only do that — there’sthe problem of the flanks to solve, and,there, they’re a handful.Suaudeau: The true bosses are Iniestaand Xavi.Deschamps: Plus Messi.Suaudeau: They’re the guardians ofBarcelona’s game.

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Deschamps: Messi is the trigger, he huntsthe ball, he’s everywhere.Suaudeau: He’s a hell of a player in ballrecuperation.Deschamps: There’s a point at which youcan say, “Block Messi,” but the other two...how do you do it? Who to put on Messi?Because, to start with, in the deploymentof the team, he’s an axial attacking player;are you going to ask one or two of yourcentral defenders to take care of him, or amidfielder? If you do that, you unbalanceyour own midfield. Marking Messiindividually is a way to limit [his influence].But how do you do it? When Guardiolahad Eto’o, he was basing his organisationalchoices on how quick the opposingcentral defenders were. If they were quick,he put Messi in the middle and Eto’o on aflank; if they weren’t, he reversed that.Suaudeau: I still maintain that Iniesta andMessi are the pivotal players. When theplay demands it, they put the ball there.They do not play their own game, theyplay their team’s game. They never veerfrom that basis.Deschamps: And since Messi is bound tobe near them, there is a second line ofrunning and the two carry on combiningwith each other.Suaudeau: It’s like laying a false track. It’smonstrous.Deschamps: The player who matters is notthe one who gives the ball, but one who

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receives it. It’s very, very hard to do that.Suaudeau: And who dictated themovement? The player who hasn’t gotthe ball. If I’m the defender against thoseguys, I’m watching the ball — and since itis the guy who hasn’t got it who dictatesthe play, I’m dead. They don’t do it once,they do it ten thousand times and in theend, you don’t even ask yourself, “Who’sthe boss?” since it’s so natural. Thedefender goes crazy.Deschamps: And they‘re intelligentenough — even if they get caughtout sometimes — to tell themselves,“The pass isn’t going to come,” or, “Myteammate is off side,’ and, in the samemovement, without a hiatus, they changetheir mind and change the orientationof the play. You cannot anticipate withthem. You can anticipate on the guywho’s got the ball, but since he’s not themost important at Barcelona...Suaudeau: You’re fucked.Deschamps: Or the lines are verycompact and the pass is very difficultto execute. In that case, they switch, goright, go left, and then...Suaudeau: They play handball!Deschamps: And it’s fast. The ball alwaysgoes faster than the players. It’s hard tomake players understand that it is thosewho haven’t got the ball who matter.Since every player wants the ball... butnot at Barça.

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Suaudeau: Are you talking to me? You,you understood that. You were alwayson the move. To receive the ball. The guywho gets the ball when he’s static doesn’tsurprise anyone. I’ve told you oftenenough: the disease is remaining static.Deschamps: It’s a simple as 1-2-3. Beforethe second player receives the ball, thethird is already in movement. That’s howyou create space.Suaudeau: Rehearsing your scales allowsyou to acquire this ability. Nothing comesout of snapping your fingers. That is thegreat truth, before you even say, “I’ll playto win.” It’s to do with education, fromthe roots of your sporting education.You’ve got to reach a certain level. Shit —I don’t how to say it...Deschamps: ...without hurtingsomebody’s feelings...Suaudeau: Yes, exactly. You can’t be athicko. We’re talking about an intelligentgame. What I’m saying could bemisunderstood, but it’s simplicity itself.Even if we’re talking about a higher levelof intelligence. There’s another thing I’dlike to talk to you about. Your famous“culture of winning”. Don’t you thinkthere’s a bit of a problem in there?Deschamps: It’s Serie A’s daily bread —and you’ll agree, coach, that this is a formof football that has won a lot of trophiesand which I’ve drawn a lot of inspirationfrom. You know that.

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Suaudeau: I’m diff erent from you in thatrespect. I am an educator.Deschamps: Not me! But I can suggest thatI am more of a competitor than you are.Suaudeau: There’s this expression “to winat all cost’. It never came to my mind. Ever.Deschamps: For me, pleasure can onlyexist in success.Suaudeau: Tchah! ... This success youtalk about, it doesn’t last. It’s powerful,but ephemeral.Deschamps: I have this pleasure. Iremember horrible games that I washappy to win, without having takenpleasure while playing them. Playingwell with no victory in the end, I say,“No”, definitely.Suaudeau: And I say the opposite. I’ll findplenty of elements [in the defeat] that willenable me to win tomorrow. You live forthe moment. I live beyond it.Deschamps: I understand your point ofview, as I know that progress also meansgoing through failure — but, today, highlevelfootball is about winning. WhenI stopped playing, I asked myself thequestion, “Do I want to become a coach?And, above all, what kind of coach? Passon [what I know] to the young ones?”After all I’d been through, I couldn’t besatisfied with that. Impossible. I wouldn’thave been faithful to myself.Suaudeau: I never thought you couldbecome an educator, anyway.

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Deschamps: I’d like to pass on what Iwas taught. I do like the idea of a coachwho is open to the young player, if thatplayer feels the need [to be taught]. Buthe has to come to me of his own will.I don’t feel myself to be a coach whoinstigates [this exchange], all the time,with no reward.Suaudeau: That’s because you’re notconvincing enough. You’re a fantasticwinner, but not a... persuader.Deschamps: It’s mostly because I haveother priorities!Suaudeau: I’ll give you that your job isharder than mine was when I was atNantes, and was given guys who’d beentrained by Raynald [Denoueix]. That’snot the case with you. Hang on to yourconvictions. That’s crucial.Deschamps: If I have the misfortune totell player X or Y to do this or that, I’mtold that the academy is where you learnfootball, not the first team. But if I askthem, it has to be because they don’tknow themselves, right? We’ve spokenabout ‘game intelligence’ already. Thereare several types of intelligence. Today,for example, it’s quite fashionable to saythat Marseille play ‘badly’. Really badly.But we score a few goals, don’t we? OK,we do not control everything, and I knowthat we have a greater chance to winour games if we play well. I adapt. MyMonaco played well, no?

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Suaudeau: A delight to watch.Deschamps: French football is [now] allabout intensity.Suaudeau: Absolutely. We don’t seeany change of rhythm. There is a beat,which can be high tempo, but there isno breaking away from it. Great teamscontrol the speed of their game. Theyspeed up or slow down when they wantto. [In France], we do everything fast —but too fast, at the end of the day.Deschamps: Too many technical mistakes.Suaudeau: That also reflects trainingmethods, you must concede that.Deschamps: It also has to do with thetype of player [French clubs look for].Interviewer: Has football changedthat much, then?Suaudeau: It’s certainly quicker; duelsare also more important — this is whereimpact is made today. Training methodsare different. The top guys still focuson anticipation, and that much hasn’tchanged. But the coaches of those topteams make it even more of a priority.What I’d call ‘game reflexes’ are sharper,quicker, and that’s something you workon at training. If you really want to knowwhat I’m talking about, look at a toro —it’s all about anticipation. The guys whoare around the player or two players whoare in the middle do not have both feet inthe same clog!Deschamps: Meaning they’re always on

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tiptoe, not on their heels.Suaudeau: Yes — you have to be like aboxer. It isn’t much, but it all starts fromthere.Deschamps: A toro is ‘play’, as in fun —but it has everything as an exercise. Smallspaces, right use of the right part of theboot and, when there are two of them inthe middle, the trick is to draw them toyou so that the door opens and bang!Suaudeau: According to you, what haschanged the most?Deschamps: The environment. I’vegot something like a press-conferenceevery day, dozens of phone calls,interview requests. But I manage, withthe media. By contrast, it’s harder withthe entourage of the players. You didn’thave to confront the things and peoplethat go with football today; the agent,the brother, the cousin, the uncle... theexecutive who says that his coach istalking bullshit and undermines his joband his authority. Human management ismore complex than it was in the past. Myjob is 60% on the fi eld, 40% off it.Suaudeau: Must be tiring!Deschamps: Everything depends on thegap between the generations of players.Some of them have seen me play, but itwon’t be long before there aren’t any ofthose left. Your credibility, your charismaallow you to do a few things, especiallyabroad, because, in France... pff ... I’ve

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heard some people say that I wasn’ttalking to players, but these playersshould go abroad. They’d understandwhat a coach who doesn’t talk is. I’vespoken more to my players over the lastcouple of seasons than all my previouscoaches spoke to me!Suaudeau: Good — carry on.Deschamps: I need this relational sideof things; but it varies according to theleague you’re working in. In Italy, at Juve,they called me ‘Mister’. When I was talkingto an Italian international, Camoranesifor example, and you asked if he wantedto have a breather after an internationalgame, he replied that it the decision wasup to me, that he’d get along with it. Itdoesn’t happen that way in France. Here,go tell a player that he’s better than theguy who will start, but that the balance ofthe team, and the complementarity of hisassociation with others are better whenthat guy is playing. It’s very French: they allaccept competition — as long as they’renot subjected to it. Making twenty-fiveguys subscribe to a collective projectremains simpler out of France than withinour borders. The notions of pleasureand passion aren’t the same anymore.It’s obvious that some of them do nothave a passion for football. What I wentthrough when I was a young player wassometimes tough, but I was rewarded.How I was rewarded! At Nantes, I had one

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right, and only one: keeping silent. Theolder guys were the bosses, the youngones had to listen. When the first teamplayed the reserves on Wednesday, Iwanted to nick their place and I went infull tilt...Suaudeau: And I didn’t hesitate to poursome oil on the fire... I loved it.Deschamps: Yes. Today, there are stilla few of the older guys who are theguardians of these [values]; and if they’renot in the majority, they’d rather shut up.At Marseille, Lucho and Heinze [sincedeparted to AS Roma] are at the trainingground an hour and a half before training,and still there an hour and a half after it’sfinished. There are others who are alreadyat the wheel of their cars when I’m still onthe field. The same guys, they go abroad,they change their attitude... otherwisethey get booted out.Suaudeau: I’d like to conclude by usinga sentence that DD knows well, as I keptrepeating it to him twenty years ago: “leplaisir du jeu génère de l’énergie pourl’enjeu” (An untranslatable pun which means : ‘the pleasure of playing produced

energy for what is at stake’ – ie, winning.). It hasn’t aged, don’t tell me ithas! Will I finally convince you?Deschamps: No, that’s not it...Suaudeau: I can feel where you’ve gone...too much into reality. With this sentencein mind, you have fun every day, and onmatch days, I don’t need to tell you! And

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you’ve known that at Monaco. Are youtelling me it’s changed since then?Deschamps: Without a doubt.Suaudeau: It goes too quickly for me,then.Deschamps: We leave it at that?Suaudeau: No. I wanted to tell you onemore thing. Before I stopped [in July1997], I wanted to do something different:educate my educators, and create a teamwith a denser midfield, players with adifferent profile... A little like the AC Milanof the mid-2000s, which had six or sevenmidfielders and no real attacker. WhenKaká was still there. And this midfieldwould explode like fireworks. Barçado it too, with less of an explosion. Allthis to tell you: midfield has to change.Midfield is where the future of footballlies, not elsewhere. This is the zone inwhich modern football has changed themost; the runs are deeper, the capacity toeliminate has improved, with, always, thesentinel, the rampart, why not the lock?Like you. Like Pirlo.Deschamps: I had a ball in thatposition. And Pirlo had two runnersby his side, Gattuso and Ambrosini,who compensated for his defensivedeficiencies.Suaudeau: It came from Italy.Deschamps: Everything tactical comesfrom Italy, Coco.Suaudeau: The future of football is also

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speed. It must go even faster.Deschamps: That’s already the case. Fastattacks are timed at five seconds.Suaudeau: Midfi eld runs, hyper-fast...these guys are the princes of technique.Give me six or seven of them in themiddle, just like that, you’ll be a terror. I’vesaid it. Back to Nantes, now.


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