Get French Football News sat down with former Arsenal and Chelsea defender William Gallas to talk about Zinédine Zidane, what the French national team means to him and his debut as manager of Les Bleus.
How do you assess Zinédine Zidane’s start in charge of the French national team and as someone who has worked alongside him with Les Bleus, can you tell me what the French national team truly means to him?
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France means a lot to him. It means a lot because he refused a lot of jobs from clubs and he refused them because his target was to be the manager of the national team. I think what he showed from the first game is that he made his team more offensive.
He put some players on the bench, he rotated the team, and everybody accepted it, whereas normally some players could be really upset, but because of Zizou, because he’s very humble, and was one of the best playmakers in the world, all the players respect him and his decisions.
They respect his decisions, but at the same time, he knows how to speak with his players. So I think in the future France will be close to winning everything, or we will win the Euros at least. I think we will win it because when you look at the squad, we are really, really, really strong.
He manages some of the world’s most talented players, such as Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé and Michael Olise. In your opinion, what can he possibly bring to them that they don’t already have? And what can he offer the less experienced among them?
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I think everybody has to recognise Zizou’s personality when, after the second or third game, he changed almost nine or 10 players. Not every manager can do this, and he did it and they won, and it was a very important game. That shows, as well, that for him, the most important thing is the team.
The team is not only 11 players for Zidane. It’s 24 players so everybody has to be involved. That’s why he even changed the goalkeeper, and normally you don’t change the goalkeeper. He changed the goalkeeper! And the second goalkeeper was really good.
That’s why now all the players know if they don’t perform, they will be on the bench, because behind them, other players are just waiting to be in the starting XI and they have the quality to do it too.
I think it was a good decision at the right time to change the manager because we have to respect what Didier Deschamps did. He did a great job for the national team, for the country, and when you look at his CV, it is more than positive.
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We have to congratulate him and say thank you very much for everything and now, all the best for Zizou.
William Gallas was speaking exclusively to Get French Football News courtesy of SeatPick, the leading platform for Arsenal tickets.
