Didier Deschamps walked back into France’s World Cup base in Boston on Saturday, hours after burying his mother in a private ceremony in the Basque Country. His return came a day after his team, under the interim charge of long-time assistant Guy Stéphan, dismantled Norway 4-1 to finish the group stage with a perfect nine points. Ousmane Dembélé struck three times inside the opening 32 minutes, and Désiré Doué added a fourth in stoppage time, ensuring Les Bleus would avoid a more taxing travel schedule in the knockout rounds.

The victory was freighted with emotion. Stéphan later told reporters that the players had wanted to “show something special” for their absent coach, and French media noted a ferocious intensity in the opening quarter of an hour that had been missing in earlier matches. Yet the week was also marked by off-field friction. American press reports indicated that FIFA rejected a request from the French federation for players to wear black armbands in mourning, having already scheduled a minute’s silence for victims of an earthquake in Venezuela. Separately, the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo published a front-page cartoon depicting Deschamps holding a funeral urn with the caption “Bring the trophy to us,” a provocation that drew swift condemnation across the French political and sporting spectrum and, by several accounts, only deepened the squad’s protective solidarity around their manager.

On the pitch, France’s performance was not without blemish. Stéphan, who has been Deschamps’ deputy since their days at Olympique Marseille, publicly chided his players for lapses in concentration when the contest appeared settled, warning that “when the situation felt easy, the players started to get lazy running” and that such slackness would be punished by stronger opponents. Norway, already qualified and fielding a heavily rotated side, nonetheless created chances that troubled the French defence. Analysts in Brazil, where the Seleção are seen as potential finalists, view France’s group-stage efficiency—nine goals scored, one conceded—as the mark of a tournament-hardened side.

Deschamps, who is stepping down after the tournament, led a light session for the substitutes on Saturday at Bentley University, appearing relaxed and exchanging jokes with his staff. The squad travels to New York on Sunday ahead of a round-of-32 meeting with Sweden at the MetLife Stadium on Tuesday. With their coach restored and the group phase navigated without a misstep, France now enter the sudden-death phase of a World Cup that Deschamps, the captain in 1998 and the manager in 2018, hopes to crown with a third star.