Prateek Tanmay
3 min readUpdated: Jul 18, 2026 11:59 PM IST
France captain Kylian Mbappe posted a farewell note to outgoing national team coach Didier Deschamps ahead of their third place play-off match vs England on Saturday. Deschamps had already announced that he’ll step down as France coach after the World Cup with Zinedine Zidane expected to take the reins after him.
“Today is your last dance. You who gave us so much. We should have offered you a better ending, but we failed. Putting words to what you brought over 14 years is very difficult, so major an actor were you in the revival of this team. People haven’t always known how to appreciate your greatness, but time and history will take care of that,” Mbappe posted on X.
“Thank you for giving me the chance and opportunity to represent my country on the biggest stage for so many years. I feel privileged to have been able to stand alongside one of the greatest legends of our country, and I hold only excellent memories of everything we lived through and accomplished together.
I wish you the best in your new adventure, and thank you again for everything you brought to this jersey that means so much to us,” he added.
Aujourd’hui est ta dernière danse.
Toi qui nous as tant donné.
Nous aurions dû t’offrir une meilleure fin, mais nous avons échoué.
Mettre des mots sur ce que tu as apporté pendant 14 ans est très difficile, tant tu as été un acteur majeur du renouveau de cette équipe. Les gens… pic.twitter.com/uGQIWqodgv— Kylian Mbappé (@KMbappe) July 18, 2026
Deschamps’ 14-year stint as the national team’s boss will end after the England match with the team hoping to give him a sendoff with a bronze medal win after missing out on their third successive World Cup final after their loss in the semifinal vs Spain.
Deschamps is among only three individuals to have won the FIFA World Cup both as a player and a coach. He won the coveted trophy as a player in 1998 in France, where he also captained the side, and then won it in 2018 as the head coach in Russia.
Zidane has had two stints as the manager of Real Madrid: in 2016-18 and 2019-21). Zidane’s stature in French football remains unmatched. As a player, the midfielder won the 1998 Ballon d’Or besides being the FIFA World Player of the Year thrice (1998, 2000 and 2003). He inspired the French football team to the Football World Cup title in 1998. He was also part of the team that lost the final of the FIFA World Cup in 2006 (where he was infamously sent off for head-butting Italy’s Marco Materazzi in the chest).
