Zinedine Zidane won the Champions League three times as Real Madrid manager. In September, the France national team will have a new face on the touchline for the first time in 14 years.

By the time the appointment was announced on Tuesday morning, it had long been an open secret that Zinedine Zidane would succeed Didier Deschamps this summer. Talks between the former Real Madrid manager and the French football authorities kicked off as early as February 2025 - after Zidane's former team-mate Deschamps announced a few weeks earlier he would step down following the 2026 World Cup.

At his unveiling in Paris, Zidane was keen to highlight the time he had spent waiting on the sidelines and preparing for the job. "I had several offers in the last four or five years, but I turned them all down," an emotional Zidane said. "The national team is the only thing I wanted."

While his enthusiasm at taking the job was the overarching theme of Tuesday morning's news conference in the French capital, the midfield legend offered few clues to France fans as to how he would approach the role. Even a question on Kylian Mbappe's captaincy was bypassed: "The most important thing for him now is to rest, we'll have the chance to speak in September."

When asked about his preferred style of play, Zidane opted against going into tactical detail. "I can't explain to you in just a couple of words how we're going win. I have to arrive, meet with the players, and explain my plans to them. After that, it'll be up to me to keep this team winning." However, Zidane confirmed his intention "to do things differently". He went on to signal that there would be a degree of "continuation" from the work of his predecessor, which he made sure to praise.

"I'm going to try do what I know how to, but it won't be a complete break either." So what will Zidane bring to the French dugout? Zidane and Deschamps, two 1998 World Cup winners, do share a few similar traits in their management, not least in their pragmatism, as well as the laissez-faire approach to attacking phases which Deschamps embraced in the recent World Cup. Given the attacking talent at his disposal, it stands to reason that Zidane would carry on in that vein.

"I was a number 10 as a player," he said, hinting he would retain the role Michael Olise thrived in for much of the summer. "What motivates me is the game, it's scoring goals," he added. With the team netting 20 times in North America, Deschamps has arguably laid the foundations for his successor's attacking set-up.

Zidane is finding Les Bleus in immeasurably better shape than his predecessor did at the start of his own tenure, at which point the wounds of the 2010 World Cup fiasco were still fresh. The appointment does come with a degree of uncertainty, though. Given that Zidane has spent five years out of management, and the Real Madrid job is the only other senior coaching role of his career, it might seem like a gamble.

The 54-year-old himself has acknowledged leading a national team would be an entirely new proposition: "It's new to me, but I'm not scared. This is what I wanted." Predictably, the reaction among players and fans to Zidane's arrival has been almost unanimously positive. He was met with a crowd of supporters carrying flares and banners as he left the French Football Federation's headquarters on Tuesday.

"Welcome home," Mbappe wrote on Instagram later in the day. Zidane was met by fans and media after his unveiling as France boss. "It's a great day for French football," his former France and Bordeaux team-mate Bixente Lizarazu told France Info later in the day. "He is more than fit to manage Les Bleus, given what he did at Real Madrid with great players and big egos."

The respect that the former Ballon d'Or winner commands in a dressing room is one of his key strengths. Even more so than Deschamps, a France legend in his own right, Zidane is a figure who can rival - perhaps even overshadow - his own players in terms of star power.

In this sense, he may be the ideal manager to get the most out of an attack made up of Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue and Olise. Zidane's four-year deal begins next month, and his full coaching team will be announced a few weeks later.

The next international break, lasting four Nations League fixtures over three weeks, will offer the France players a crash-course to the new management style. His first match will involve a trip to Turkey, before two games against Belgium and match against Italy in Paris. Given his iconic status within French football and on the wider national stage, Zidane will invariably enjoy an unprecedented degree of goodwill regardless of his initial results.

Whether he uses that leeway to experiment tactically and bring in new faces remains to be seen. His homecoming at the Stade de France in two months' time, against the Azzurri no less, is an ideal fixture to begin the new era.

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