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2026 FIFA World Cup
24JUN

Deschamps leaves France camp after loss

2 min read
09:29UTC

Didier Deschamps left the France camp after his mother's death and will miss the Norway group match, with assistant Guy Stephan taking charge.

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Key takeaway

Deschamps will miss France's Norway match after a bereavement; both sides are already through.

Didier Deschamps learned of his mother's death on the morning of Tuesday 23 June and left the France camp to attend the funeral 1. Deschamps has managed France since 2012, winning the 2018 World Cup and reaching the 2022 final; he will miss the final Group I match against Norway on Friday 26 June.

Assistant Guy Stephan, his long-serving deputy, takes charge of training and the game. French Football Federation president Philippe Diallo agreed the arrangement. The federation, known by its initials FFF, governs football in France and signs off on staffing decisions of this kind.

The match has little riding on it. France are already qualified for the round of 32 , as are Norway , so the fixture decides which side tops the group and nothing more. Deschamps returns to a squad whose passage he has already secured, and Stephan inherits a settled team rather than a selection crisis.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Didier Deschamps is France's head football coach, the man who won the World Cup as a player in 1998 and as manager in 2018. On 23 June he received news that his mother had died and left the team to be with his family. His assistant Guy Stephan, who has worked alongside Deschamps for France since 2012, will run the next match. Because France has already qualified for the knockout stage, missing one group game carries no competitive consequences for the team's tournament ambitions.

Sources:The Washington Post
Mentions:France →Norway →Washington Post →Group I →World Cup →United States →England →Didier Deschamps →Fédération Française de Football →Guy Stephan →
First Reported In

Update #28 · Ronaldo answers Messi at the era's far end

The Washington Post· 24 Jun 2026
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Causes and effects
This Event
Deschamps leaves France camp after loss
France are already through, so the absence costs the team a coach for a dead-rubber decider rather than a match that decides survival.
Led to
Lightning halts a World Cup first
France's qualification (ID:4454) means Deschamps' absence for the Norway match affects standing only, not survival
Occurred 22 Jun 2026
Read story →
Norway end a 28-year World Cup absence
Norway's qualification (ID:4455) means both sides are already through; the Deschamps absence has limited competitive consequence
Occurred 22 Jun 2026
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France go perfect as Dembélé hits three
Guy Stephan selected France's rotated lineup against Norway during Deschamps' absence at his mother's funeral
Occurred 26 Jun 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
French Football Federation
French Football Federation
The FFF called an 11:00 CEST press conference for 28 July, at its Paris headquarters, following an extraordinary executive committee meeting, at which Zinedine Zidane is expected to be presented as head coach succeeding Didier Deschamps. As of this writing no communique confirms the appointment, contract length or start date.
Morocco
Morocco
Morocco is pushing for the 2030 final at its Grand Stade Hassan II in Casablanca, a planned 115,000-seat venue that would be the world's largest football stadium on completion. The venue is contested by a Spanish petition for the Santiago Bernabeu, and FIFA has fixed neither the venue nor the tournament's proposed 64-team format.
FIFA
FIFA
FIFA's first tournament report, published 27 July, itemises nearly 300,000 accredited personnel, 73,700 security staff and 300,000 square metres of custom-grown turf, with no revenue or cost figure attached. As a Swiss association answering to its own Congress rather than a treasury, FIFA has followed the same operational-before-financial sequence it used after Qatar 2022.
Javier Tebas / La Liga
Javier Tebas / La Liga
La Liga president Javier Tebas said on 21 July that FIFA's system is rotten from the root and that Gianni Infantino's time as president has, in his words, concluded. Tebas has no vote in FIFA's process, so days after the IOC declined jurisdiction over a separate ethics complaint, he used the only instrument he has.
Mexico City government
Mexico City government
Head of government Clara Brugada presented a closing report on 22 July crediting the tournament with 44 billion pesos of economic activity, 2,000-plus accelerated public works and 100,000 formal jobs in June alone. The city has not published the method behind that figure, and three other Mexican bodies count the same five weeks differently.
Town of Foxborough
Town of Foxborough
Foxborough answered Kraft Group's June lawsuit on 7 July with a 61-page counterclaim, calling the stadium's owners 'a collection of multibillion-dollar corporations' trying to shift its $7.8 million security bill onto taxpayers. The town says its licensing power and its billing power run through the same board, and it wants the court to award its own costs too.