Corinne Deacon, an iron discipline and a temperament of Jupiter – Liberation

The authoritarian management of the coach of the France team earned her trust and respect as much as tensions with her players. As Les Bleues prepare to face Italy this Sunday to launch their tournament, “Coco” is aiming for at least the final.

Since Les Bleues settled into the elite of world football a dozen years ago, we always come back to the same litany. Between “encouraging defeats» et «honorable eliminations“, the French women’s team is looking for a title that escapes it every time. Since 2009, they go out most of the time in the quarter-finals or reach the last four during holidays (2011 World Cup, 2012 Olympics). The discipline constitutes a sort of walking paradox in France. The girls of Olympique Lyonnais have won six of the last seven Champions Leagues while PSG have reached the final twice. The French championship, assigned in advance to the two flagship clubs, takes place in empty stadiums, often dilapidated, when the TV audiences of the national team are a hit.

Worse, last year at the Tokyo Olympics, the players of Corinne Deacon, absent from a major competition for the first time in thirteen years, following their elimination in… the quarter-finals of their World Cup in 2019, saw the handball players ( Olympic champions) and basketball players (bronze medalists) shine in their place. Like Didier Deschamps for men after the failure of Euro 2021 or Sylvain Ripoll with the Espoirs (early elimination at the same Olympic Games), the coach of Les Bleues remained in place. The president of the Federation, Noël Le Graët, remains faithful to his grognards. Many are wondering, including internally. Is Corinne Deacon the ideal person to lead the selection to a first international title that would change everything?

Didier Deschamps to the rescue

The Jupiterian management of the Northerner (47 years old), in place since 2017, is divided. Like Raymond Domenech in his time, she concedes nothing to seduction. Her way of directing creates tensions and turmoil within the staffs that she coaxes. Some assistants, notably at Clermont Foot, the boys’ team she coached between 2013 and 2017, did not survive it. “Above all, don’t expect her to change, it will never happen” tweeted Thomas Guerbert, one of his former Auvergne players, after one of his many disputes with the Lyon backbone of the France team. Amandine Henry, Wendie Renard, Eugénie Le Sommer or even Sara Bouhaddi, the executives of the Rhone training, accustomed to a kind of benevolent self-management, have often come up against the intransigence of the tricolor coach. “Some players have been put in the closet for more or less time not to fit into the mould. Even if she is a little psychorigid, we can recognize that she treats all girls the same way, regardless of their level or status. reports off a player who evolved under his orders in Soyaux (Charente) in the early 2010s.

Former captain of the selection (121 caps), Deacon was the first woman to obtain her coaching diploma in the country and to lead a men’s professional team, which gives her unfailing credibility. “She needs to know who she’s dealing with. “Coco” has principles from which she will never deviate. If you don’t, too bad for you. The hour is the hour. The cap, when you enter a closed place, you take it off. Your bottle is your bottle and you keep it. told in 2019 to So Foot Jennifer Maier, ex-teammate at Soyaux. Faced with attacks from Lyonnaises or the press, Didier Deschamps and Laurent Nicollin (president of Montpellier) came to his rescue. When he brought Clermont up to Ligue 1 last year, Pascal Gastien reminded him of what he owed his predecessor. “When I was loaned to Clermont [en 2016, ndlr], I was in a period of doubt and it revived my career. She is not in complicity but in the requirement. She makes her players progress and that’s the main thing.continues Gaëtan Laborde, Stade Rennes striker.

“Chats are not what I prefer”

Often considered cautious in the offensive animation of her teams, Corinne Deacon devotes an unfailing devotion to tactical discipline and the solidity of her defensive block. At the upcoming British Euro, she will have to deal with two parts of her job that she hates, talks and press conferences. “I worked a lot with my communication teacher on the talks but I admit that it is not what I prefer”, she euphemistically.

After the 2019 World Cup, Amandine Henry, one of the best players of Les Bleues, indulged in some criticism of the coach’s granite methods, on her lack of tact. Deacon did not forgive. In October 2020, the latter called the Lyonnaise to inform her of her absence at the next meeting for sporting reasons. “The call lasted fourteen, fifteen seconds, I will remember it all my life. At the time, I was shocked,” she testified to the Canal Football Club shortly after. On the other side of the Channel, the leader of Les Bleues took a core of young players and some ultra-experienced former players. “This is a good thingunderlines Marie-Christine Terroni, the president of Paris FC. The French breeding ground is enormous.” Deacon, for his part, announced the color: «On has a stated ambition, to go to the final. Any other result could mean the end of his lease.