France arrived in New York/New Jersey on Tuesday for its opening match against Senegal, a day-before arrival that puts Didier Deschamps and his squad on the clock at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The first game comes tomorrow, and the matchup already carries the weight of history.
Deschamps was asked about the old frame around this meeting and did not take the bait. “I know you like this revenge but there is no revenge in football,” he said. “This will be another story to write.” He added that France would try to make sure the result goes its way this time, but insisted on respect for Senegal, which he described as one of the best African countries and one of the best in the world.
That history is impossible to miss because Senegal upset the then World Cup holders in the opening game of the 2002 edition. France has no need to pretend that is irrelevant, but it also does not get to turn the rematch into a grievance. In tournament football, the past is a reminder, not a promise.
The arrival matters because the 2026 FIFA World Cup is already under way in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and France’s first step now sits one night away. The match gives Deschamps a chance to define the tone of France’s campaign before the calendar moves on and the talking stops. His words make the line clear: the memory is there, the revenge story is not.
Elsewhere in the tournament, FIFA is calling Lumen Field simply “Field” even though it is the home of the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders, a sign of how the event is flattening familiar places into broadcast shorthand. In Seattle, Belgium and Egypt are playing there, while fans in Pioneer Square watched Spain-Cape Verde on a big screen at 9 a.m. PST on a Monday morning. The live feed around the World Cup is already stretching from stadium to square, and France’s opener now joins that moving picture.
What comes next is straightforward enough: France plays Senegal tomorrow, and the question is not whether 2002 can be replayed, but whether Deschamps can turn the old memory into a winning start without pretending it means more than one match.
