Didier Deschamps: Chelsea Player 1999 to 2000

Didier Deschamps Against Stamford Bridge Seating

Long before Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea and invested billions into making the team one of the best in England, Stamford Bridge was still a destination for many players who wanted to soak up the glitz and glamour of life in London. That is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that French defensive midfielder Didier Deschamps signed for the Blues back in 1999, spending one season playing in West London before moving on to pastures new. It was a short-lived spell, but one that many Chelsea fans will remember with fondness as much because of what it represented as anything else.

Playing in France

Nantes Flag
Deschamps began his professional career with Nantes, playing with the club between 1985 and 1989

Didier Claude Deschamps was born in the French city of Bayonne on the 15th of October 1968. When he was around eight years old, Deschamps signed up with the youth team of his local club, Aviron Bayonnais, remaining there for seven years before signing with Nantes. That was in 1983, making his way through the youth system before starting for the first-team for the first time in 1985. Having initially played rugby, Deschamps was built to be a defensive-minded player, playing in a game in the league for the first time on the 27th of September 1985, remaining with the club for four years.

In 1989, Deschamps made the move to Marseille, having played more than 100 league games for Nantes prior to the transfer. Almost immediately, the player was sent on loan to play for Bordeaux, making 29 league appearances for them and scoring three goals. This gave him the necessary experience to become part of the Marseille first-team, going on to play 123 league games for them and winning the first honours of his career. He won Ligue 1 twice, the first in 1991 and then again a year later, before winning the Champions League in 1993 and being the youngest ever captain to lift the trophy.

Success at Juventus

Deschamps’ silverware at Marseille meant a huge amount to the young player, on account of the fact that he had been made the club captain. It also caught the eye of the Italian giants Juventus, who were looking to bolster their midfield in order to take on the rest of Serie A. As a result, he transferred to the club in 1994, going on to win the Italian title at the first time of asking. He also helped the team lift the Coppa Italia in that season, as well as the 1995 Supercoppa Italiana, all whilst making it to the final of the UEFA Cup before eventually losing to Parma on aggregate.

It is fair to say that Deschamps wasn’t finished there, however. Although Juventus didn’t win the Italian league in the 1995-1996 season, they did make it to the final of the Champions League. There they faced the defending champions Ajax, winning in a penalty shootout.

In 1996, the club also won the Intercontinental Cup, as well as the UEFA Super Cup. It was back to winning ways in Serie A in the 1996-1997 campaign, adding the Supercoppa Italiana and another Champions League final appearance. In fact, they played in three successive Champions Leagues, but only won one of them.

Moving to Chelsea

Whether Champions League final defeats to first Bayern Munich and then Real Madrid were too much for Deschamps to cope with or he simply felt that his race in Italy was run, the French midfielder decided to depart Turin after the 1998-1999 season. His destination was Chelsea, where Italian Gianluca Vialli was the manager. Having finished third the season before and qualified for the Champions League at the third qualifying round, there was a belief that the club could go one better and challenge for the title in the 1999-2000 campaign. Deschamps was bought for £3 million to add quality and experience.

He joined a midfield that already contained the likes of Roberto Di Matteo, Dennis Wise and Gustavo Poyet, whilst the signing of Chris Sutton from Blackburn Rovers was seen by many to be the missing piece of the puzzle. In the end, Sutton only scored one goal, which added to the four netted by his strike partner Gianfranco Zola, to be an entirely underwhelming return. When the dust settled at the end of the season, the Blues had finished fifth in the Premier League, exited the League Cup at the third round stage and been knocked out of the Champions League in the semi-finals.

The only bright spark came in the form of the FA Cup, where the Stamford Bridge side had defeated Hull City 6-1 in the third round, Nottingham Forest 2-0 in the fourth round and won 2-1 against Leicester City in the fifth round. The quarter-finals pitted them against Gillingham, whom they dispatched with ease by winning 5-0. In the semi-finals, it was Newcastle United that stood in their way, but a 2-1 win at Wembley Stadium was enough to send them into the final. There, they played Aston Villa and a goal from Di Matteo was enough to see them end the campaign with some silverware.

Leaving Chelsea

Mestalla Stadium
Didier Deschamps signed for Valencia in 2000. Image by Kurt via flickr

Whether Deschamps had been intending to spend longer than one season with Chelsea or not is something that only he will be able to answer, but when the campaign came to a close, he decided that it was time to move on. He had played 27 times for the Blues in the Premier League, failing to score but getting one assist, which some might argue is more than enough for a player whose primary responsibility is in protecting the defence. In fact, his nickname being ‘the water-carrier’ tells its own story about where his role was within the teams that he ended up playing for.

He was coming to the end of his career, however, and decided that he wanted one more challenge before he retired. The result of that was a move to Spanish side Valencia, where he spent one season and played 14 league games. He did, though, help the team make it to the final of the Champions League, where they faced Bayern Munich. For the second time in his career, he had to watch as the German team lifted the trophy at his side’s expense. When he retired, he did so having been just the second player to have lifted all three of the Champions League, World Cup and European Championship as captain.

Becoming a Manager

In the wake of his retirement as a player, Deschamps decided to move into management. He began his career with Monaco, winning the Coupe de la Ligue in 2003 before reaching the final of the Champions League a year later. He was thwarted by Porto and their young manager José Mourinho, however. Next, he moved back to manage his former club Juventus, who had been relegated to Serie B following the Calciopoli Scandal. He helped them to win promotion back to Serie A, resigning after the win that confirmed the title against Mantova.

Then came management at another former club in Marseille, whom he helped to win the Ligue 1 title for the first time in nearly two decades. He went on to win three consecutive Coupe de la Ligue titles, as well as consecutive Trophée des Champions in 2010 and 2011. That was enough to convince the French national team to appoint him as their new manager, where he got them to the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the final of the European Championship in 2016. In 2018, his France side won the World Cup, being losing finalists again in 2022 to Argentina.