It is not about French players.
Majority of people and players are like that.
Look at Spain after 2012.
Look at Barca's amigos after 2012'.
That is a huge problem:
= once after you win everything, what to do?
It is hard to sell/replace those players right away because you (a coach) will be kind of an asshole for stabbing in the back players who brought you all the success.
If you keep those players, in probably 90% of cases, all you will get is a downfall and a Titanic-ending.
It is awesome when you win.
But what do to after that is a real question?
We (Barca) are in that phase currently.
For more or less 8 years and it will continue for a few more years at least.
My bad ,you're right, everyone tend to do that actually.
I think that Zidane tried to answer that question when he left RM in 2018. What to do after 3 CL in a row ? He tried to force a change to keep the team in a competitive mind set : We were good but it might not be the case now after those changes.
RM results that year showed that it wasn't enough.
I think that the easiest ways to keep a team competitve is :
- Making a team hungry for results by constantly bringing players that want to prove something
- Having a charismatic dictator like coach that players both fear and respect
The problem is how do you get those players ? How do you keep the cycle going ? La masia ?
A dictator like coach is great when everything is going well but as soon as the results don't follow...
The only team that is trying to keep this working is Liverpool : Klopp is repected and feared. They have hungry players and the most important thing is that they have been so humiliated in the past that they are craving titles.
I think that it's impossible to keep any team on top forever. We have to accept the cycle concept and work / anticipate to exit bad phases as quickly as possible.