According to journalist Romain Molina, France star Benjamin Pavard created problems in the French dressing room during the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Pavard allegedly made inappropriate comments about his teammates during the nerve-wracking final against Argentina.
As the situation escalated, there were words exchanged with Didier Deschamps regarding the incident.
Pavard played 89 minutes during Les Bleus’ opening clash against Australia at the World Cup. However, he didn’t play a single minute in the rest of France’s matches.
With qualification to the knockout stages done and dusted, Deschamps decided to rotate his squad for the clash against Tunisia, which France lost by a scoreline of 1-0. Pavard, however, did not feature.
Deschamps clarified his decision, saying (via Get French Football News):
“I took the decision not to play him. I won’t go into the details. I’ve had several conversations with him. I don’t consider him to be in the right disposition. So you’ll ask me – is it physical, is it in his head? The first match didn’t help, of course. That’s why I made a different choice.”
Didier Deschamps was not too happy with the referee’s performance during France’s FIFA World Cup final loss against Argentina
Polish referee Szymon Marciniak was in charge of the FIFA World Cup final. He awarded a controversial penalty to La Albiceleste after Ousmane Dembele was adjudged to have fouled Angel Di Maria, which Lionel Messi converted to open the scoring in the 23rd minute of the game.
Didier Deschamps was not entirely happy with the referee’s performance, as he said after the match (via The Guardian):
“I need to be careful – you saw it as well as I did, It could have been worse, it could have been better. Before this match Argentina had been a little bit lucky but I don’t want to take anything away from them; they fully deserve the title. It is not because we suffered from any decisions that they came out victorious. I just discussed this with the referee after the game but don’t want to go into details.”
Les Bleus suffered a penalty shootout defeat, which meant they couldn’t defend their status as world champions.