On May 23, 2001, Valencia lost the Champions League final on penalties to Bayern, with Didier Deschamps remaining on the bench until the end. The very last season of his career was a failure.
Captain of the French team, world champion in 1998 then winner of Euro 2000 (before being world champion in 2018 as coach of the Blues), Didier Deschamps also has an exceptional record at club. In the Champions League alone, he lifted the big-eared cup as a young captain of OM in 1993, won a second LDC with Juventus in 1996 against Ajax, but lost three others , two with the Bianconeri in 1997 and 1998, then with Valencia in 2001.
After a single season at Chelsea, with his friend Marcel Desailly, “La Dèche” decided to retire internationally during Euro 2000 (despite the insistence of Roger Lemerre at the whistle of the final against Italy) , and opted for a new adventure in Spain, in Valencia, just finalist of the Champions League. Héctor Cuper’s Chés will achieve the feat of reaching the C1 final for a second time in a row. As against Real Madrid at the Stade de France the year before, they failed against Bayern, on penalties (1-1, 5 tab to 4), on May 23, 2001 at San Siro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imGy71tsgtQ&pp=ygUVY2hhbXBpb25zIGxlYWd1ZSAyMDAx
Didier Deschamps remains on the bench in the final
Ahead of David Albelda and Ruben Baraja in the midfield (to protect Gaizka Mendieta and Pablo Aimar, the two leaders of the team), Didier Deschamps played little. Especially since he is stopped by small injuries. In the LDC, he was withdrawn from the quarter-finals against Arsenal and only came on for the last 20 minutes of the semi-final return against Leeds (3-0). Unsurprisingly, the player trained at FC Nantes starts the final against Bayern on the bench, but he is not one of the three players who came on to challenge his friends Willy Sagnol and Bixente Lizarazu. Mauricio Pellegrino misses his team’s seventh shot on goal to crown the Munich team.
Alongside his long-time friend Jocelyn Angloma, Didier Deschamps did not make an impression among the Mestella residents, playing only 19 matches in all competitions (for no goals). “La Dèche” plays the Liga match before the Champions League final, against Bilbao, but will not play any of the last three championship matches. The Valencians also finished in freewheeling fashion with defeats against La Coruna and Rivaldo’s Barça to finish 5th. And Deschamps will retire at 32.
