Barthez, Bettoni, Sanhadji: inside Zinédine Zidane’s France backroom staff | OneFootball

The French federation announced on Thursday part of Zinédine Zidane’s France backroom staff, naming Fabien Barthez as goalkeeping coach alongside Real Madrid allies. The group will be finalised by September, before his first camp and a Nations League trip to Türkiye on 25 September.

Barthez, 55, won 87 caps for France. He consulted for France under Raymond Domenech and Laurent Blanc, but not during Didier Deschamps’s 2012 to 2026 reign, when Franck Raviot remained. His coaching experience is limited, including a brief TFC stint from 2020 to 2021.

Zidane has reunited with Real collaborators David Bettoni and Hamidou Msaidie as assistants. He worked with them while in charge from 2016 to 2018, and from 2019 to 2021. Grégory Dupont takes a strategy and performance brief, and Stéphane Plancque returns as observer.

The final make-up will also include a liaison officer, an Interior Ministry agent assigned to security duties. Zidane continues to rely on long-serving security chief Mohamed Sanhadji, liaison officer from 2004 to December 2025.

Sanhadji left the police early after being sanctioned for accepting a €60,300 donation from Kylian Mbappé after the 2022 World Cup without declaring it. Valued by players and the federation, he was hired for the 2026 World Cup and now oversees logistics and security.

Doctor Franck Le Gall, in post since 2012, is replaced by Hervé Collado, president of the Société française de traumatologie du sport. Collado has worked with the France women’s team and with the triathlon team at the Rio 2016 Paralympics.

Source: Le Progres

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