‘He wants to mark a break’ – FFF president on Zinédine Zidane’s arrival as France manager

‘He wants to mark a break’ – FFF president on Zinédine Zidane’s arrival as France manager The president of the FFF, Philippe Diallo, has said that Zinédine Zidane wants to “mark a break” from the previous regime. Zizou replaced Didier Deschamps following the FIFA World Cup and will take charge of his first game as manager of the France national team on Friday. Deschamps was manager of the France national team for 14 years and notably won the World Cup back in 2018, whilst also leading the nation to the WC final in 2022 and the semi-finals earlier this year. Zidane has held out for the France job, rejecting many other high-profile approaches during his five-year hiatus. He is looking to quickly put his stamp on this team, as shown with some of his selection choices, as well as the spectre of a big move in the repositioning of Kylian Mbappé on the left of the attack. “I think that he has very clear ideas about what he wants to do, in the way that he wants to manage this France team. You have seen it; he is marking a break [from the previous regime]. A real page is turning,” Diallo told La Provence . The FFF president continued, “He has taken 23 players instead of 26. That’s a first sign. He will make them play. He took names that, maybe, we didn’t expect. He didn’t take some that maybe we did expect. So I think that he is in his process, wanting to make a break, a break in his management of the squad […] in everything that he will do, I think that he wants to change things, to change things with a clear objective to win things. I think that is his deep desire.” Zidane’s France get their UEFA Nations League campaign underway against Turkiye on Friday night. GFFN | Luke Entwistle