Coach Didier Deschamps said France had responded to their critics with a “great” performance to reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup with a 4-3 win over Argentina today.
France struggled to convince during the group stage of the tournament in Russia and Deschamps said he was happy they had finally lived up to expectations.
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“We had to respond (to the critics) and we responded well,” he said.
“Criticism is always there. But there is truth on the pitch and (the response) came through a strong and quality performance which we delivered tonight. We made Argentina suffer.”
“It was a great fixture and a great match,” he told TF1.
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“There were mistakes, obviously. We started badly at 2-1 down but we knew what we needed to do. We could have kept things a bit simpler near the end of the game, though.
“There was a lot of emotion. I am happy for the players who went out to get this qualification for the quarter-finals.
{{/usCountry}}“There was a lot of emotion. I am happy for the players who went out to get this qualification for the quarter-finals.
{{/usCountry}}“As I told them before the game, we have been preparing for months, for weeks to play matches like that.”