Zidane and France's New Order: When the Catwalk Is Shut Down

Zidane and France's New Order: When the Catwalk Is Shut Down

In August 2026, as France's squad approached Clairefontaine, not a single photographer was allowed at the gate. No fashion parade, no designer outfits unveiled as if launching a collection. Just an iron gate, a few security staff, and behind them Zinedine Zidane — the man who took over the France national team after fourteen years of Didier Deschamps.

That image alone said almost everything about what Zidane intends to build.

According to RMC Sport, cited by Goal.com, the new France staff banned journalists and photographers from the squad's arrival point. The footage of players stepping off the bus, showing off bags, shoes and expensive accessories — content that had become a staple of social media for years — was cut off at the source. Zidane called it part of a "new order". I call it the first sigh of a new reign.

Context: fourteen years and an ageing legacy

To understand why such a small act deserves attention, it must be placed in a larger frame. Deschamps ran France for fourteen years — an unusually long span at international level. He took the country to World Cup glory in 2026, to the 2026 final, and shaped a pragmatic, tightly organised style that valued results over beauty. Yet after more than a decade, that very stability started to be seen as stagnation.

The original report speaks of France needing to "dust off" its traditional methods. This is a significant signal. It is not merely a change of coach; it is a cultural repositioning. Deschamps left behind a stable structure, but the price of stability was an ecosystem used to the old rhythm — from training patterns to meetings to the way the team faced the media.

Zidane arrives as a World Cup winner, an icon of French football, someone with enough authority to do what an ordinary coach would not dare. That is his greatest advantage, and his greatest risk.

Notably, the source report mentions no tactical system, no pressing scheme, no specific playing philosophy. No xG, no PPDA, no possession figures. This is a story about governance and organisational culture, not tactics. And that is precisely why it is interesting in a different way.

A strike at the catwalk

For years, the ritual of players appearing at airports or training-ground gates had turned into a fashion runway. There, personal image was pushed ahead of the collective. Jules Koundé — the defender famous for his distinctive dress sense — is often cited as the emblem of this trend. His outfits became talking points across the press, sometimes commanding more coverage than a match itself.

Zidane did not ban players from dressing well. He banned the platform that turned it into an event. By removing cameras from the arrival point, he stripped away the stage for content that lives on curiosity about appearance. It is a strategically calculated move: cheap, non-confrontational with players, yet it shifts the centre of gravity of the information flow.

The stated goal is clear: prioritising football performance over personal appearance. With no catwalk, players have only one place left to express themselves — the pitch. This is the logic of a man who was an artist of the pitch, who understands that everything else is noise.

I have seen how media can be steered without a single ban. But Zidane chose the more direct route. He did not negotiate with attention; he cut it at the root.

Restructuring the machine: where intent truly shows

If the media ban is the visible tip, the submerged part — more important — lies in the staffing.

Zidane expanded the technical team. He organised a specialist seminar in mid-August. These are infrastructural preparations, not a playing philosophy. But the staffing structure is where intent leaks out.

David Bettoni — Zidane's long-time assistant — was brought in. He is the anchor of continuity. In a wholesale restructuring, Bettoni carries relational capital and trust, softening the shock for a dressing room that has not yet adapted. Beside him is Stéphane Plancque, an observer expected to add another analytical layer.

Most notable is the addition of Arthur Hochedé, a specialised physical trainer. When a new coach installs a dedicated fitness specialist, it often signals a game model demanding higher intensity. This is inference, not fact stated in the source. But it is grounded inference: you do not reinforce the fitness department if you intend to sit deep and wait.

In parallel, medical adjustments were finalised. Serge Isidro was appointed to handle foot care, replacing Marc Retali. A seemingly minor change, but at elite level the foot is the asset. Replacing a podiatrist at the very start of a tenure shows Zidane wants control of the performance department before a ball is kicked.

That is not a trivial detail. It is a signal.

Those who stay and those pushed aside

There is a line I always carry in my work: the heart of football is not in the stands, but in the sighs of those who remain. France has many who remain. Deschamps left behind a generation of players accustomed to the old ways. They were cared for under a system that reigned for fourteen years. Now that system is being changed from the top down.

Marc Retali was replaced. A new fitness specialist was added. A new observer appeared. These are quiet people — nobody writes about them when the team wins, but when there is an injury, a ninetieth-minute goal conceded, or a player suffering a relapse, all eyes turn to them. In football, the silence of the medical room is the most expensive luxury.

Zidane seems to understand that. He did not just change the coach. He changed the whole operating machine behind the coach.

Zidane and the habit of watching in person

One further detail deserves emphasis: Zidane attended the Trophée des Champions at Stade Bollaert-Delelis in person. He did not sit at home watching recordings. He went and watched.

This matters on two levels. First, it reveals a method: direct observation rather than reports or video. In an era when data analysis has entered the dressing room and sometimes detaches from real rhythm, a coach still choosing his own eyes is a methodological statement.

Second, it may be a bridge-building gesture. Bollaert-Delelis is French football territory, hosting a domestic fixture. Zidane's presence there, watching players and possibly Ligue 1 faces — a group historically under-used under Deschamps — sends a message: the door is wider open.

This aligns with the reported expectation of an expanded squad list and fresh faces. Both facts originate from RMC Sport via Goal.com.

I once mispronounced a legend's name, and learned that football does not forgive carelessness. Travelling to watch a match in person, rather than reading a report, is a way of not being careless. You cannot judge a player's quality from a page of numbers alone. You need to see him move off the ball, hear him breathe, sense how he reacts after losing possession.

Data tells you what happened. Eyes tell you what is about to happen.

The truth lies in what is not said

But honesty matters here: France under Zidane, in sporting terms, remains a complete unknown. No match has been played. No tactical system has been announced. No official squad exists. The squad announcement is expected at 6:00 pm on Friday, and until then, any analysis of playing style is conjecture.

This is the point to dissect. The "new order" story is built on verifiable organisational actions — the media ban, the expanded staff, the medical changes — yet rests on no result. It is a story about process, told before any result exists.

What does that mean? It means Zidane is managing expectations from day one. By setting a high disciplinary and control standard, he builds a framework in which results are presented as consequences of process, not as the only test. This is an extraordinarily subtle pre-emptive pressure move.

People called me mad. But my madness has its own logic. And I see logic here: a man who has just taken over a team with infinite expectations, yet has no match to prove himself in, needs another story to stand on. The discipline story is the safest choice.

The media machine is hard to shut down

This is where I want to go against the crowd. Most commentary on Zidane's media ban is praise: bold, correct, "let football be football". But there is a paradox few point out: the ban itself created a story about media.

When you ban cameras, you do not kill curiosity. You redirect it. With no images at the camp gate, the press will hunt internal sources. They will chase leaks. They will build a narrative about control. The tighter a coach grips, the more reason the press has to dig. The team's silence becomes another media product.

I have seen similar cases across more than thirty years in this trade. At many clubs, an initial media ban is celebrated — until results turn bad. Then it is reversed: the team is hiding something, the coach is out of touch, it is a sign of weakness. The same act, two readings.

So the "no more catwalks" ban is a gamble. It only wins if there are results.

The easiest thing to misread: data cannot be covered up

One thing must be stated plainly: the original analysis offers no financial figures, no transfer fees, no wages, no contract clauses. Because this is a national team, not a club. The French Football Federation does not operate under club-style financial fair play. The staff expansion implies the FFF funded a larger backroom team, but no number is given. Anyone claiming to know the cost of this restructuring is inventing it.

Likewise, there is no performance data. No xG, no xGA. No basis to say Zidane's results are better or worse than the underlying quality of performances. Any such claim, at this stage, is unfounded.

I stress this because it is my principle. As a commentator, I have learned that numerical accuracy matters as much as sharpness of opinion. Every mistake in front of a camera forces me to rewrite my own story. It is not worth creating new errors just to manufacture a shock.

What I do know is this: it is a regime transition, the start of a cycle. No results are in hand. And precisely because of that, cultural signals matter more than usual.

Risk concentrated in one man

If I had to name the single biggest risk of the Zidane project in France, I would not choose tactics. I would choose dependence on Zidane himself.

The entire energy of the rebuild is funnelled into his personal authority. He is a World Cup winner, an uncontestable icon. But a team run by an icon, not a system, is fragile. If early results do not come, that personal authority can burn very quickly. The English football I follow is full of such examples: a legendary coach arrives, everything is built around him, and when results sour, nothing is solid enough to hold the structure up.

Zidane has the continuity benefit of David Bettoni, but that is a small anchor relative to the scale of the restructuring. The staff expansion is a positive sign: it shows Zidane is trying to institutionalise power, not just rely on personal charisma. But a month and a half of preparation is far too short to say the system stands firm.

If I had to stake my name on one prediction — as I once did with a striker many considered finished — I would say this: France's biggest question over the next twelve months is not which formation they play, but whether Zidane can distribute power away from himself fast enough.

A crack between generations

There is another risk rarely discussed. France has a generation of players who grew up in the Deschamps era. They are used to a certain way of meeting, training, communicating. Now they enter a new order with different demands and standards. For young players, this is opportunity. For established ones, it can be threat.

Expanding the squad list and bringing in fresh faces is a double-edged sword. It creates internal competition — a soft-power lever to enforce discipline. But it can also dilute the cohesion of a group used to each other. In short tournaments, cohesion sometimes matters more than individual talent.

I once worked in a newsroom where a new editor-in-chief arrived and changed the entire workflow. Supporters of the old way resisted quietly. That resistance was not loud. It lived in small details: a delayed meeting, an unanswered email, half-hearted collaboration. In a football team, it lives in hesitant passes, in not running full-tilt, in silence in the dressing room. That is the hardest thing to see, and the hardest to fix.

The report says the aim is for players to "settle in and adapt smoothly". But smoothness rarely comes by itself. It must be built, and protected in the first weeks, when there are no results to ease the tension.

The paradox of discipline

Here is where I want to push against the prevailing story.

The popular story now is: Zidane arrives, clears away the glamour, returns football to football. It sounds compelling. But there is a paradox worth stating: discipline does not automatically produce victories. A team can be highly focused, silent before the media, perfectly conditioned, and still lose for lack of a sharp enough tactical idea.

The new order is built on the assumption that a disciplined environment will lead to higher performance. But that assumption needs evidence. And evidence only comes from matches. Meanwhile, an over-tightened environment can backfire: it can make creative players hesitant. French football, with its tradition of producing instinctive attackers, risks trading freedom for control.

That is why I refuse to rush into praise. People called me mad. But my madness has its own logic: I refuse to praise a film that only has a trailer.

Age fifty-one and patience

Age fifty-one taught me that impatience is a catalyst, but only when distilled through experience. Years in this trade have shown me that big changes at a club take time to surface. Deschamps needed time to build his fourteen-year empire. Zidane deserves time, but he also deserves to be judged strictly on what he actually does, not merely on cultural signals.

What I want to watch over the coming months is not how many new faces appear on the squad list. It is how France reacts the first time they fall behind. How they breathe in the seventy-fifth minute of a tense match. How players speak about each other in the dressing room when no camera is present. That is where the real order is built — or broken.

A stake, and what can be verified

If I must offer a verifiable prediction, I will say this: I believe Zidane's restructuring will produce a France side playing at higher physical intensity than under Deschamps, with more domestic-based faces, and with tighter media discipline. This is a prediction drawn from staffing signals — particularly the addition of a dedicated fitness specialist and Zidane's personal attendance at a domestic fixture.

But I also predict a difficult spell. I think there will be a match in which France play exactly to the framework, control the game, and still fail to win. At that moment, the very "no more catwalks" story will be deployed as proof of misplaced priorities. That is the trap any discipline-based reign must face.

I could be wrong. I have been wrong before. But being wrong is no reason to stop making judgements.

What lingers after the sigh

Looking back on my career, what I remember is not the applause. It is the silent moments in the newsroom, when all of us knew a team had just lost something important. The heart of football is not in the stands, but in the sighs of those who remain.

France today has no roaring stands. No cameras at the gate. Only those who remain — Zidane among them — trying to give French football back something they believe was forgotten.

Will they succeed? Nobody knows yet. But I know one thing: orders built in silence are often the most durable. Or perhaps the most fragile. The difference between those two possibilities will not lie at the fence outside Clairefontaine. It will lie on the pitch, in matches not yet played.

And as always, I will sit there, taking notes, and wait to see whether my madness has logic.