It was an unforgettable tournament debut by Iceland, drawing against Poland before eliminating England – an achievement that will be remembered along with the feats of the new European champion, to be crowned back at the Stade de France next Sunday.
Advertisement
Lagerback took charge in his seventh major finals having led his native Sweden to five and Nigeria at the 2010 World Cup.
Thursday’s semi-final takes place at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille.
Two goal man-of-the match Olivier Giroud said his side would be out to avenge their 2014 World Cup quarter-final defeat to Germany.
“They’re a fantastic team and they made us look bad, even if we contributed to that”.
Deschamps surprisingly left the Atletico Madrid striker, as well as Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba, out of Les Bleus’ second Group A game against Albania after a lacklustre showing against Romania in the tournament opener.
While Giroud was happy to see France avoid another slow start against Iceland, he admitted the prospect of world champions Germany in the semi-final is a completely different proposition.
Together, the three players have scored 10 of France’s 11 goals at Euro 2016 – Griezmann with a tournament-leading four and Payet three. It tried to rally after the break with a goal from Kolbeinn Sigthorsson, and added a late consolation through Birkir Bjarnason, but the damage had already been done.
“Their attack is so good, they have got very good players going forward”.
“We are lucky enough to play a semi-final in front of a home crowd”.
France defeats Iceland, but in the football world, it is a victory for both sides.
“It is true it’s not possible to forget about that, but we are fully concentrated on the Euros and our performance”, said Hugo Lloris, the France and Spurs goalkeeper. Collecting a pass from the defence via a Giroud dummy, the Atletico Madrid forward found himself clean through and produced a ideal chip over Halldorsson to make it 4-0. Griezmann raced onto Giroud’s flick-on before dinking a shot over the advancing Halldorsson.
Most thought Iceland had done well in just qualifying for their first ever major tournament, but they shocked everyone when they drew with Portugal in their first game, before knocking England out at the round of 16.
But France replied with Giroud beating Halldorsson to a Payet free-kick immediately before the Arsenal striker was withdrawn.
Advertisement
Iceland may be out of Euro 2016, but they certainly went down swinging.
