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Soccer

Jacquet Knows You Can’t Top This

By HELENE ELLIOTT
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Although French Coach Aime Jacquet has said he plans to retire after the World Cup, several of his players got together over the weekend and asked him to stay.

Laurent Blanc, Marcel Desailly, Didier Deschamps and Youri Djorkaeff informally met to decide whether they will ask him to reconsider his decision.

“The World Cup marks the end of an extraordinary adventure,” Deschamps said. “I don’t know what the decisions will be. But we would like to continue with the same group and the same men. We have attained our objectives. It’s necessary to respect each person’s choice, including the coach’s. But we talked among ourselves. Why shouldn’t he continue?”

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However, Jacquet appears firm in his decision. “I have devoted myself to French football since 1994. I long ago announced that I would retire,” he said Saturday. “The objective was met.”

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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