Didier Deschamps left not only good memories during his 14 years at the head of the France team. Retired since the termination of his contract with AS Saint-Étienne in January 2021, Stéphane Ruffier is one of the players who did not like working under the orders of “DD”.
Ruffier’s career with the French team extends from 2010 to 2015. Although he was one of the most consistent and efficient goalkeepers in Ligue 1, his history with the Blues remains marked by a substitute status, behind Hugo Lloris and Steve Mandanda in particular, and is summed up by 3 selections, including 2 under the orders of Deschamps.
During an interview given to the podcast “La Voix des Gardiens”, the former Greens goalkeeper returned to his conflictual relationship with the ex-coach. Relations which deteriorated from the 2014 World Cup, for which he was called up at the last minute to compensate for the departure of Steve Mandanda, injured.
Ruffier to Deschamps: “You change your speech, your version, when you want”
“For the 2014 World Cup, I have a pseudo explanation. Initially I was not called up, but Mandanda got injured and I was told that I was finally number two. They tell me that I did everything to be there and to be in that place. This is the beginning of the misunderstandings with Didier Deschamps: when I need you I give you a smile, when I don’t need you I don’t calculate you. I am number four in the coach’s mind, there is an injured person, I go number two. First of all, it’s weird. That means that potentially he thinks you’re better than the third, because potentially it’s you who plays if there’s someone injured.” Ruffier said.
“When he returned from the World Cup (2014), Micka Landreau stopped. Suddenly he takes me, he continued.
Except that when he took Mickaël Landreau, he said that he was the best number three and that I was not a number three, that’s what he told me. And afterwards, when he gives me number three, I ask him the question and he tells me that he has to take the three best. But before on the other hand, he took the best number three, but not on the field, in the life of a group, but after that that was no longer the case. »
After a last selection in March 2015, in his Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in a friendly against Denmark, the native of Bayonne was never called up again. And contrary to what some rumors suggested, it’s not because he refused to be number three. “I didn’t refuse to be number three. I just told him what I was thinking: “your speech is not honest. You change your speech, your version, whenever you want. “And he didn’t like it”, he confided. A frank discussion which sealed his story with the selection.
