Didier Deschamps (born 15 October 1968 in Bayonne) is a former French football player who captained France to victories in the 1998 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2000.On 26 May 2007, Didier resigned as coach of Juventus F.C., a position he had held since the start of the 2006/07 season.
Deschamps started his football career at an amateur club, Aviron Bayonnais whilst still at school. His potential was spotted by scouts from Nantes, for whom he signed in April 1983. Deschamps made his league debut on 27 September 1985.
Transferred to Olympique Marseille in 1989, Deschamps spent a season with Bordeaux in 1990 before returning to Marseille. In this second spell with Marseille Deschamps gained his first honours. As well as winning two French league titles in 1991 and 1992, Deschamps was part of the Marseille team which became the first, (and so far only) French winners of the UEFA Champions League in 1993. He is the second youngest captain to lead his team to the Champions League title (behind Steven Gerrard in 2005), which also made club and national teammate Fabien Barthez the youngest goalkeeper to win.
In 1994, Deschamps joined Italian giants Juventus, with whom he won three Serie A titles, one Italian Cup, two Italian Supercups, his second Champions League title, and an Intercontinental Cup.
After Juventus, Deschamps spent a season in England with Chelsea, winning the FA Cup. He finished his playing career in Spain, spending a season with Valencia and winning La Liga before retiring in 2001.
Receiving his first international call-up from Michel Platini in 1989 (against Yugoslavia), Deschamps started his international career in what was a dark time for the French team, failing to qualify for the World Cup in both 1990 and 1994.
When new team coach Aimé Jacquet began to rebuild the team for Euro 96, he initially selected Manchester United star Éric Cantona as captain. After Cantona earned a year-long suspension in January 1995, the makeup of the team changed dramatically, with veterans Cantona, Jean-Pierre Papin, and David Ginola being dropped in favour of younger players such as Zinedine Zidane. Deschamps, one of the few remaining veterans, was chosen to lead what would be later be called the "Golden Generation". He first captained France in 1996 in a friendly match against Germany as a warmup for Euro 96. During the tournament held in England, he led them all the way to the semi-finals, their best finish in an international tournament since the 1986 FIFA World Cup.
In 1998, Deschamps captained France as they won 1998 FIFA World Cup on home soil, performing an integral role in the team. Propelled by the momentum of this triumph, Deschamps also captained France as they won Euro 2000, giving them the distinction of being the first national team to hold both the World Cup and Euro titles since West Germany did so in 1974. France held the top position in the FIFA World Rankings system from 2001-2002.
Following the tournament Deschamps announced his retirement from international football, making his final appearance in a ceremonial match against a FIFA XI in August 2000. At the time of his retirement Deschamps held the record for the most appearances for France, though this has since been surpassed by Marcel Desailly, Zinedine Zidane and Lilian Thuram. In total, Deschamps earned 103 caps and scored four goals. Deschamps was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.
Deschamps was once - derisively - described by Cantona as "the water-carrier" by which Cantona meant that Deschamps only existed to pass the ball to more talented players. This description masked a very valuable player for a number of top teams.
After retiring as a player, he went into football management. He was the head coach of AS Monaco in France's Ligue 1, leading Monaco to its first UEFA Champions League final in 2004. He resigned on 19 September 2005 after a poor start to the season, and disagreement with club's president.
On July 10, 2006, Deschamps was named head coach of Juventus, after Fabio Capello resigned in the wake of the match-fixing scandal.
Deschamps first game in charge of Juventus was highly successful when Juventus beat Alessandria 8-0. But poor results followed after Juventus was knocked out in the 3rd round of the Coppa Italia and the 1-1 draw at Rimini on the first day of the season. But the following 3 games which Juventus beat Vicenza 2-1, Crotone 0-3 and Modena 4-0 made it look like Deschamps had everything under control. Also Deschamps has helped Juventus to win their first competition since being relegated (due to the match fixing scandal) which was the Birra Moretti cup where Juventus beat Inter Milan 1-0 and Napoli in a penalty shoot out.
He led Juventus to make its return to Serie A, finalized on May 19, 2007 following a 5-1 away win at Arezzo. On May 26, several media announced Deschamps had resigned as Juventus head coach following several clashes with the society; this was however denied by Juventus itself a few hours later.Later that evening after the game against Mantova which confirmed Juve as Serie B champions, Deschamps confirmed to the media that he had indeed resigned. The news was then made official by Juventus a few hours later.
