That feeling came out after the West Ham star netted a fabulous late victor against Romania to give the UEFA EURO 2016 hosts an opening victory at the Stade de France.
Advertisement
The first match of the Euro 2016 kicked off with France taking on Romania which saw France take all 3 points with a 2-1 scoreline. the Romanian side were threatening from the first few minutes of the game as we saw a shaky French defence with Laurent Koscielny and Adil Rami not working in tandem with each other.
“Be it with France or West Ham, everybody knows how talented he is.
If someone had told me that it would have gone like that I don’t think I would have believed it”, he said.
Dimitri Payet has revealed that his initial doubts about not being in the France squad for the 2016 European championship led to his emotional outburst after he scored the victor in the first match Friday night. “It was a superb goal”.
A draw looked the most likely outcome until Payet capped a brilliant individual display with his wonder goal in the 89th minute.
Patrice Evra clumsily and carelessly brought down Nicolae Stanciu in the area in the 65th minute, and from the resultant penalty, Stancu calmly finished beyond Lloris and into the bottom right to secure his first competitive global goal since October 2014.
It meant France escaped with the three points despite the likes of star players Paul Pogba and Antoine Griezmann being a touch off colour.
“He played the nearly ideal match, he could have finished the game with five or six assists if we’d taken out chances better”, Giroud said.
Giroud’s headed goal came midway through the second half. As a result, it took some time for France to “feel the game”.
As Payet was substituted in the final minutes, he struggled to hold back the tears as the realization of what he had achieved sunk in.
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”.
Advertisement
Before Stancu scored his penalty, he lacked composure when spurning clear chances in each half as Romania pressed the favored French hard. It’s quite easy in football when you can bang it into the top corner. I made sure we played to win, with four attacking players on the pitch at the end. “At the start of the second period we got in to the box a great deal and unfortunately Stancu missed that chance once again”.
