A gala poster. Saturday evening, the Groupama Stadium in Lyon-Décines was sold out for the friendly match between France and Germany. For this first gathering of the year 2024 and a few months before the Euro, Didier Deschamps' men had the opportunity to test themselves against the host country. Beaten 2 to 1 on September 12 by the Germans, the French sank again on Saturday evening since they lost 2 to 0 during a meeting where they showed almost nothing apart from their new jersey. After the meeting, the Blues were inevitably disappointed like Olivier Giroud.
Stung players
“We must not make excuses. We started the match badly, they caught us cold. We took a while to react and we didn't score on our highlights. In the middle of the field, they tended to find their players between the lines. It's a reminder that you need to have the warm-up blue from the start and for 90 minutes. This is what made us strong, and in the aggression and the duels, we lost too many balls. In the first half, we pushed, we had two chances. We managed to be dangerous. It’s not nothingness either.”
He then added: “but we have to be aware that they were superior to us this evening (Saturday). It is better to do this kind of performance there than at the Euro. I'm from the region, I had a nice welcome, but I would have preferred us to win the match. I think we were outclassed in all areas of the game.” Like him, Benjamin Pavard and Aurélien Tchouameni spoke of a good booster shot while indicating that they were annoyed and upset after such a “slap” according to the Madrilenian. For his part, Didier Deschamps also used strong words in a press conference.
Deschamps doesn't find excuses
“We were not able to rise to the level proposed by the opponent. There is the start of the match, but we were also below in terms of aggression and determination. Germany showed more quality. Would we have been able to do better? I can ask myself the question. The international level is ruthless. We can talk about technique, accuracy, but the Germans gave us a match with high intensity. We reacted too much intermittently. You have to accept it, it doesn't feel good. It's a reminder, I would have done without it. I don't blame the players, the main person responsible is me.”
DD added: “It’s always good to have difficulties. There, we had quite a few. Too much and too much. This will have to serve us, even if in three days (against Chile) it will be another opponent. That there is fatigue for different reasons, yes, but that is not an excuse either. We were in physical deficit, collectively and individually. In intentions, we were less determined than usual. You have to accept it. We lacked aggression, determination, we failed. There is the merit of the opponent, even if on the opponent's first goal, we are very passive. Generally speaking, we did not respond.”
Blues in the tough
The French technician hopes to learn lessons from it. “From the moment when collectively we are below what we are capable of doing, that is one of the difficult matches. It's not running away from what happened, it's already happened to us and we know what we have to do so that it doesn't happen to us in three days and at the Euro. We will meet teams who have the ability to destabilize us. Beyond the fact that we didn't do it, maybe we weren't capable for different reasons. We could do a little less this evening compared to what we could usually do.” Especially as usual, Antoine Griezmann is there.
“I didn't need this match to know the importance of Antoine. Honestly, if he had been here today (Saturday), given our shortcomings in many areas, it would have been complicated too. We were lacking in areas other than the technical aspect. From there, the high level is very difficult to exist against a Germany which had a very big match., he explained. The Blues will have to quickly recover and above all show a different face on Wednesday at the Orange Vélodrome in Marseille against Chile. The opportunity to show that this hiccup against Germany was just an incident.
