France captain Kylian Mbappe issued a farewell message to national team coach Didier Deschamps ahead of the third-place playoff against England on Saturday. Deschamps had previously confirmed he would step down after the World Cup, with Zinedine Zidane expected to replace him.
Mbappe wrote that it was the coach’s final match and that the team should have delivered a stronger conclusion. He noted the difficulty of summarizing the coach’s contributions over 14 years to the squad’s revival and observed that the full extent of those efforts may only be appreciated later.
