France’s forward Dimitri Payet (R) celebrates with France’s forward Olivier Giroud after scoring the 2-1 during the Euro 2016 group A football match between France and Romania at Stade de France, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on Friday night. The Arsenal striker should have opened the scoring in first-half stoppage time when he headed over Payet’s pinpoint corner and contrived to shoot straight at the goalkeeper when put through on goal at the start of the second half.
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Payet didn’t agree with this, however, stating that “winning by a two or three goal margin could have been dangerous”, but the narrow escape early on shows them that “there will be no easy match” in their quest to come out on top at the end of the finals, therefore making Friday’s game the flawless start. “It’s a very good thing to have won the first match, to start us off in the competition”. I think there are many people who thought it was going to be easy, but the coach [Didier Deschamps] had warned us.
France coach Didier Deschamps paid tribute to a 29-year-old player who galvanized the team as it desperately sought a breakthrough. Yes, we were a bit timid and afraid of making mistakes in the opening quarter.
France coach Didier Deschamps, whose side was playing Germany in an worldwide friendly when the Stade de France was targeted on November 13 by suicide bombers linked to militant group Islamic State (IS), has said the attacks, which killed 130 people, evoked “very strong emotions”. Though it was short lived as a penalty kick from Bogdan Stancu gave Romania the equaliser. But we must still congratulate the Romanian team.
“It felt like they had 12 players on the pitch”, Evra said.
Didier Deschamps has plenty of exciting talents at his disposal with the likes of Paul Pogba, West Ham’s Dmitri Payet and 19-year-old Kingsley Coman providing support to Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann and Manchester United’s Anthony Martial.
Dimitri Payet helped France register a 2-1 win against Romania.
Dimitri Payet said that there was plenty of emotion and pressure in the winning goal as France got off to a winning start. “He can make the difference”.
France entered the game – preceded by the tournament’s opening ceremony led by dancers performing to a remix of Edit Piaf’s La Vie En Rose and further songs played by leading DJ David Guetta – among the tournament’s favourites.
Now that France have their awkward opening win out of the way and have a taste for competitive action once again, they need to move forward with confidence.
“I was the first to be caught by surprise by this news”, De Gea said.
“He knew how to save us”, France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris said.
Patrice Evra conceded his first ever worldwide penalty as the second half wore on and Stancu was on hand to covert before Payet’s moment of brilliance settled the result in style.
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All of the French side were relieved to have got the win. Yugoslavia’s Dragan Džajić scored the only goal of the game to knock England out with a close range volley, and the era of England’s opening day woes began. “It solves a lot of problems”.
