After the French national team’s commanding 3-0 victory over Sweden in the World Cup round of 16, coach Didier Deschamps deliberately played down expectations. In order to prevent premature euphoria surrounding Les Bleus, he made an unusual request to the media: the journalists should deliberately look for weaknesses in France’s performance.
“But go ahead, find problems, that’s good. It mustn’t all be sunshine and roses,” Deschamps said at the post-match press conference, according to a report by ‘RMC Sport’. Although his team has cruised through the tournament without dropping a point, the national coach still sees plenty of room for improvement. Among other things, he criticized inaccuracies in the passing early in the match against Sweden and pointed to the difficult pitch, which had disrupted the flow of the game: “There are always things to improve.”
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Despite reaching the last 16, Deschamps urged his team to stay grounded. He said the success should be appreciated, but under no circumstances should they become arrogant now. After a short recovery phase, the full focus would be on the next opponent, Paraguay, who present a completely different profile.
On Saturday, France will face Paraguay, the team that beat Germany, in the round of 16 (11 p.m. German time).
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
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