Deschamps absent from Pirès tribute, rift with 1998 World Cup champions confirmed

Didier Deschamps will not be at Saint-Symphorien Tuesday evening for Robert Pirès’ tribute match, missing yet another gathering of the 1998 generation to which almost all his former teammates have responded positively.

The list of attendees is nonetheless impressive. Laurent Blanc, Marcel Desailly, Thierry Henry, Zinedine Zidane, Patrick Vieira, Lilian Thuram, Bixente Lizarazu, Youri Djorkaeff and Emmanuel Petit are among the heroes of the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 expected in Moselle. Arsenal legends such as Samir Nasri, Lukas Podolski and Jens Lehmann, as well as major names in world football — Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o, Franck Ribéry — will complete the lineup alongside FC Metz greats.

Deschamps’ absence, meanwhile, no longer surprises. The former France manager has methodically avoided collective dinners, charity matches and gatherings of the World Cup champions’ association for years. The only notable exception: the 25th anniversary celebrations at Zidane’s Z5 complex. For a long time, he justified this by a duty of discretion linked to his role leading the French national team. But his responsibilities have ended, and the absence persists.

Behind the institutional posture, the cracks run deep. Tensions with Christophe Dugarry — himself absent from Moselle — have often been cited as the starting point of a rift that gradually extended to much of the 1998 dressing room. “Who does he stay in contact with? I don’t know. In any case, not with us. It’s been quite a while now. There’s no more contact. We don’t speak anymore. At all. There’s a clear, sharp and precise fracture,” Emmanuel Petit had confided.

When asked about this withdrawal, Deschamps acknowledged that he had “for a time” put himself “on the sidelines for the good of the group” and admitted some disagreements with Dugarry, while refusing to shoulder sole responsibility for the distance: “I’m not going to dodge the question, but there are other 1998 players who never came to the gathering.” An argument that fails to bridge the gap.