France's Didier Deschamps Gets Brutally Honest After Lopsided World Cup Loss
Newsweek · C · trust 21/100
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Spain ended France 's World Cup run on Tuesday night, leaving Arlington, Texas, with a commanding 2-0 victory over Les Bleus. The win sends La Roja back to the World Cup final for the first time since they won the whole tournament back in 2010, while France's golden generation of young stars heads home empty-handed, again.
The game took a big turn in the 22nd minute when France's Lucas Digne fouled Lamine Yamal in the box, and Mikel Oyarzabal stepped up and scored the penalty kick. Spain had full control of the game after that. Pedro Porro scored the second deciding goal in the 58th minute, linking up with Dani Olmo before putting it past Mike Maignan.
Spain's defense was the story of the night, holding Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Bradley Barcola, Desire Doue, and Michael Olise to just 0.3 expected goals, zero chances created, and zero goals scored.
After the crushing loss, head coach Didier Deschamps didn't shy away from it . He admitted France wasn't technically sound enough to win and needed to be at their best to have any hope, but simply weren't.
"We made mistakes, more technical mistakes than we had made until now ... But we know the capacity that this Spanish team has, and to have any hope, we needed to be at our maximum. But we weren't, unfortunately. So this was a huge disappointment," Deschamps told reporters.
"In a match like this, against a team like Spain, you have to be at your absolute maximum. France wasn't at that level tonight," he added.
This loss stings for a few reasons. France had just lost to Argentina in the last World Cup final and entered this tournament as one of the favorites, alongside Spain. Over the last month, France has looked like the team to beat, and Les Bleus were chasing their third straight World Cup final, something only West Germany (1982-1990) and Brazil (1994-2002) have done.
Instead, their elite attacking force got shut out entirely by the same Spain team that's now beaten them three times in a row, following defeats in the 2024 Euro semifinals and 2025 Nations League semifinals.
There's extra weight on the loss too because this will be Deschamps' one of the final matches as the head coach of France. He's still one of only three people to win a World Cup as both a player and a manager. He played for the 1998 team that won the country's first-ever World Cup and led Les Bleus to win the whole thing as the manager in 2018. But it's a quiet way for his 14-year reign to end.
France still has one game left, a third-place match on Saturday, July 18, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida. They will face the loser of England and Argentina, with that match set to kick off tomorrow in Atlanta, Georgia.
More news : Belgium Won’t Let Go of Balogun Controversy, Even After Blowout Win Over USMNT
Read the original at Newsweek →
Open in TruthVane →