Earlier this morning, in the hours before France’s European Championship meeting with Belgium, Didier Deschamps will have gone into Guy Stephan’s bedroom, picked up an electric razor and shaved his assistant’s head with light, gentle strokes.
Nobody else will have been present but the ritual is an essential part of a matchday routine that dates back to 2014. There are other superstitions: at every meal — breakfast, lunch and dinner — Stephan sits to Deschamps’ left. On every bus ride and plane flight, he sits to his right.
“It’s all about balance, there’s nothing political about it!” Stephan laughs.
The proud Breton has been Deschamps’ number two for the last 15 years: the first three at Marseille and the last 12 with France. They endured tough times together at Marseille, a “volcanic” club, in Stephan’s words. But their relationship goes back even further than that, to 2000, when Deschamps, then the French captain, and Stephan, assistant to then-manager Roger Lemerre, won the European Championship.
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