Didier Deschamps' remarkable spell as France coach ended in disappointment as Spain outclassed Les Bleus in the World Cup semifinals, but one painful defeat will do little to diminish one of the greatest managerial legacies in international football.
France were beaten by Argentina in the 2022 World Cup final and have now lost to Spain in three consecutive major tournament semifinals: Euro 2024, the UEFA Nations League and Tuesday's 2-0 World Cup defeat.
Despite those recent setbacks, Deschamps leaves behind an extraordinary record.
Appointed in 2012, when French football was still reeling from the infamous player revolt and first-round exit at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, he restored stability, belief and success to the national team.
He guided France to their second World Cup title in 2018, exactly 20 years after captaining the team to its first on home soil. Under his leadership, France also reached the World Cup final again in 2022 and advanced to the semifinals at three consecutive tournaments.
Deschamps finishes his tenure with a record 20 World Cup victories as France coach, having transformed Les Bleus into the most consistent force in international football over the past decade.
Saturday's third-place playoff will provide an anticlimactic farewell for the 57-year-old, who announced last year that he would leave when his contract expired after the tournament.
His successor, former France teammate Zinedine Zidane, has long been the favorite and will inherit a gifted squad but also a familiar challenge: turning perhaps the deepest talent pool in the country's history into the winning machine it should be.
Deschamps' teams were rarely associated with flamboyance. He was sometimes criticized for favoring balance, discipline and efficiency over spectacle, even when blessed with some of the most gifted attacking players in world football.
But results repeatedly justified his methods.
He took France to the 2014 World Cup quarterfinals, where they lost narrowly to eventual champion Germany, before guiding the hosts to the Euro 2016 final. Defeat by Portugal in extra time was painful but laid the foundation for becoming world champions in Russia two years later.
France beat Croatia 4-2 in the 2018 final, making Deschamps the third man, after Brazil's Mario Zagallo and Germany's Franz Beckenbauer, to win the World Cup as both a player and a coach.
They added the UEFA Nations League title in 2021 and came within a penalty shootout of retaining the World Cup in Qatar, recovering from a dreadful opening 80 minutes to draw 3-3 with Argentina in one of the tournament's greatest games.
Those achievements gave Deschamps a reservoir of credit few coaches could match.
He survived the fallout from France's disappointing Euro 2020 campaign, recurring debates over his cautious style and the long, divisive exile of striker Karim Benzema.
His authority remained intact because he kept building teams capable of making deep tournament runs.
The former defensive midfielder had made a career out of winning long before taking charge of France.
Born in Bayonne in 1968, he made his top-flight debut for Nantes as a teenager before joining Olympique de Marseille, where he won two league titles and captained the first French club to lift the Champions League trophy in 1993.
A move to Juventus followed in 1994. In Turin, Deschamps won three Serie A titles and another Champions League trophy, establishing himself as the understated organizer at the heart of one of Europe's dominant teams.
Eric Cantona once dismissively described him as a "water carrier," but the label came to capture the qualities that defined Deschamps: discipline, intelligence, selflessness and an instinctive understanding of what winning teams required.
He won 103 caps and captained the side that lifted the World Cup at the Stade de France in 1998 before completing a historic double at Euro 2000.
Success followed him into management.
Deschamps took AS Monaco to the 2004 Champions League final, guided Juventus back to Serie A immediately after its demotion in the Calciopoli scandal and ended Marseille's 18-year wait for the French league title in 2010.
When he succeeded former France teammate Laurent Blanc in July 2012, the national team was still attempting to rebuild its reputation after the players' strike at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Deschamps restored order first, belief second and success soon afterward.
His critics argued that France's talent pool demanded more expansive football. His response was generally the same: tournaments were won through adaptability, defensive resilience and an acceptance that style mattered less than survival.
For more than a decade, the argument was difficult to counter.
The manner of Tuesday's defeat will nevertheless sting. France arrived as favorite after their attacking firepower had carried them through the tournament, only to be outclassed technically, tactically and physically by Spain in Dallas.
Deschamps admitted his team needed to be at its best to compete and had fallen well short.
France were unable to impose their strength, their celebrated attack was neutralized and their midfield was overwhelmed, a grim final chapter for a coach whose sides usually found a way, even when playing poorly.
"I do not want to throw away everything we have done," Deschamps said after the defeat. "But in this match Spain showed they had something more."
It was a fittingly measured assessment from a man who rarely allowed triumph or disaster to alter his public demeanor.
Deschamps will leave without the glorious farewell he craved, but with a record that places him alongside the most influential figures in French sporting history.
He lifted the World Cup as captain, hoisted it aloft again as coach and spent 14 years ensuring France were almost always present when the sport's biggest prizes were decided.
One painful night in Dallas cannot undo that.
