Tomorrow morning, in the hours before France’s European Championship meeting with Belgium, Didier Deschamps will go into Guy Stephan’s bedroom, pick up an electric razor and shave his assistant’s head with light, gentle strokes.
Nobody else will be present but the ritual is an essential part of a matchday routine that dates back to 2014. There are other superstitions: at every meal — breakfast, lunch and dinner — Stephan sits to Deschamps’ left. On every bus ride and plane flight, he sits to his right.
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“It’s all about balance, there’s nothing political about it!” Stephan laughs.
The proud Breton has been Deschamps’ number two for the last 15 years: the first three at Marseille and the last 12 with France. They endured tough times together at Marseille, a “volcanic” club, in Stephan’s words. But their relationship goes back even further than that, to 2000, when Deschamps, then the French captain, and Stephan, assistant to then-manager Roger Lemerre, won the European Championship.
It has been a phenomenally successful alliance, yielding five league titles at Marseille and three finals in the last four major tournaments with France, including winning the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Setbacks, such as a shock last-16 defeat to Switzerland at Euro 2020, have been rare.
“It hasn’t always been linear,” Stephan tells The Athletic. “But despite those few defeats, we’ve managed to hold on.”
The bond between Stephan and Deschamps — who recently signed new contracts until 2026 — is now so strong that they often do not even require words to communicate — a mere look will suffice. And, while Deschamps is the figurehead for France and their supremely gifted squad, Stephan’s presence is invaluable. “If it’s going to last, it’s because we complement each other,” the 67-year-old says.
Stephan did not tread the traditional route into football management. His father, a mechanic, thought being a footballer was not a profession and, while Stephan’s secondary school PE teacher, Claude Perrard, was an encouraging presence, he enrolled in a teacher training course at the behest of his parents.
He does not regret it. “My career path would probably have been different, not better or worse, had I turned professional before studying,” he says. Stephan was, in his own words, “a good player, not a very good player” but he still represented France’s youth team.
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Between the ages of 19 and 23, Stephan spent his weekdays training to be a teacher in Dinard, Brittany, and then on Saturdays driving 90 minutes to play for second division side Guingamp. He had a close relationship with the club president, Noel Le Graet, who went onto become FFF president for 12 years, from 2011 to 2023.
Stephan qualified as a sports teacher but did not return to the classroom. Instead, in 1980, aged 23, he became a professional footballer, joining Rennes — his eldest son Julien, who was born there, is their current manager. It was the start of a professional playing career that also took in spells at Le Havre, Orleans and Caen.
Then, on July 24, 1986, everything changed. Stephan was travelling home after training at Caen when he was involved in a serious car accident. He fractured his jaw, leg and elbow and sustained such a serious head injury that he was put into a coma.
“I learnt you have to get up again,” he says. “It’s obviously difficult at the time, for you and even more difficult for those around you. You tell yourself that you’ll get back up again.”
After several months of rehabilitation and physiotherapy, Stephan returned to training but soon realised “it wouldn’t be like before”. He struggled to return to the same level and, at the age of 29, decided to retire.
But Stephan’s football story was not over. His calling was always to teach in some form — his knowledge in psychology, physiology and pedagogy acquired from his teacher training helped him gain his coaching qualifications — and so he became Caen’s first-team assistant alongside Pierre Mankowski.
The coaching profession has evolved over the years. When Stephan started out in the 1980s, coaches tended to be, in his words, “authoritarian” and “ruled with an iron fist”. But times have changed and coaches have had to adapt too.
Deschamps has faced criticism for being too functional but Stephan disagrees he is “old school”. Despite winning the World Cup and Euros, plus three Champions League titles, Deschamps hardly ever harks back to his playing days and instead stays reactive to the present moment.
“He’s got something extra,” Stephan says. “The main thing is to always be aware of what’s going on out there. You’ve got all the generations, you have to talk a lot with the players. It’s important for them to express themselves.
“In that respect, Didier is very, very strong. He’s very good at talking one-on-one with a player — he spends a lot of time and energy on that. Today’s coaching job is all about human relationships and getting the best out of the player. He has evolved. He’s closer to the players than he used to be.”
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But if Deschamps is close to the players, he is even closer to Stephan.
“We spend much more time together than we do with our wives when we’re in camp,” Stephan laughs. “We think about football in the same way, even if there are some differences. My job is to tell him what I feel, even if it doesn’t correspond to what he usually does. Once he’s made the decision, I don’t bring up anything I might have said before. I might change his mind. But he makes the decision and nobody knows about the previous discussion. In the players’ eyes, there cannot be a single millimetre between me and Didier. That’s essential in a group.
“We mustn’t leave room for the slightest leak. Sometimes they cause problems and conflict in a group. We have to try to resolve it as quickly as possible. But there are always some. The media, you’re too strong,” he chuckles.
Stephan attributes the strength of their relationship to Deschamps being a good listener.
“I’m not saying he retains everything I say, but he listens and exchanges,” says Stephan. “I put different arguments to him. He’s the one who makes the decision. If an assistant is there to just lay out the cones on the pitch, that’s no good. They have to be concerned about decisions and the smooth running of the team.”
The players are just one team but there is a whole backroom staff to align as well. When Stephan started out coaching, he, like many in that era, did almost everything, including training the goalkeepers and preparing players physically. Now, he is responsible for devising the daily training programme and writing it on the flipchart, but an army of around 20 other staff members also have an input, from the team chef to data and performance analysts.
Deschamps and Stephan’s job is to unite the two groups towards the same goal. France midfielder Antoine Griezmann has singled out this quality as to why his manager has been successful.
Even so, Deschamps has a tight inner circle of technical coaches — Stephan, goalkeeping coach Franck Raviot and physical trainer Cyril Moine — which is far smaller compared to other national teams. He can rely on them to be, in Deschamps’ words, “fuel to his thinking”. His style is quality over quantity, with loyal, competent staff covering every base from medical to media.
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One of the difficulties managers face is keeping players who do not feature in matches on board. That has become even trickier with the increase in squad sizes from 23 to 26, a rule initially introduced at Euro 2020 because of the global pandemic. Deschamps opted to take only 25 players to Germany but the challenge remains.
“The more players there are, the more who aren’t playing regularly,” says Stephan. “It’s extremely difficult, those who aren’t playing are a little less happy. We have to try and involve them as much as possible.”
Beyond training and match preparation, Stephan’s role is to “oil the cogs”, as he puts it, including from a psychological aspect.
“I know the manager’s plans for the next match. I can anticipate. Who is going to be affected? When I’m walking down a corridor or going for lunch and cross paths with a player, I ask how he is, how his family are. I try to find a topic of conversation that will lead to an exchange.
“I can see whether that player seems down or not, whether he’s smiling. I don’t have to report all the information because there’s a certain trust with the player which is also very important. Then, in training sessions, I can engage him as much as possible.”
In turn, that creates a more sustainable environment throughout the tournament, which is needed if a team is to go far.
Ask Stephan what makes a World Cup-winning manager, and he could not be clearer. “You need to detect everyone’s qualities, bring people together, be a good psychologist, strategist and someone who obviously takes responsibility for results, whether good or bad,” he says.
What strikes him, however, is Deschamps’ calm persona in big pressure moments, a quality Griezmann says he has felt in the dressing room. The manager recently said in a press conference he never worries about anything, although Stephan mentions he has reduced his usual 60-minute plank, a core exercise, because of a minor back problem.
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“He transmits that serenity to the group,” says Stephan. “He’s focused but he’s not uptight in his language. Matches are often won in the second half and substitutions. We talk a lot during and after games. Sometimes there are questions on the bench. He asks my opinion and there’s a certain pressure to get results. That’s true for everyone. But he’s not a stressed person. That’s one of the reasons for his success, too.”
France have underwhelmed so far this tournament with a 1-0 win over Austria and two draws against the Netherlands and Poland. They have only scored one goal, a Kylian Mbappe penalty in their last group game. The narrative goes that they turn the screw in the knockouts which Deschamps perceives as a new competition, but the pressure is on.
“If you want to last, you have to win matches,” says Stephan. “I’ve watched Didier grow over the last 15 years. I’m older than him (by 12 years) so he owes me respect, I say that with a smile. He was already very good and I’ve seen him get better.
“If we’re holding up today, it’s because we’re winning games. That’s a coach’s career. It can’t last with defeats — it’s impossible.”
Whatever the result on Monday, Deschamps knows that Stephan will be by his side — loyal to the last.
(Top photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
