Deschamps, 47, captained France to glory at the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 and is seeking to add a third major title to his worldwide trophy collection.
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Griezmann missed a penalty for Atletico Madrid in their Champions League final defeat by Real Madrid in May and made a poor start to the Euro in France’s 2-1 win over Romania. In a thrilling match in the competitionso far France have managed to beat the world champions and the firm favorites Germany by two goals to nil.
The left-back, then of Manchester United, was stripped of the captaincy, dropped for the final game against the hosts and, in the continuing fall-out, was banned by the French Football Federation for five matches. Les Bleus have everything going for them: aside from star goal machine Griezmann, France also has a solid backline and excellent physical endurance. Despite all that, he became a regular for the French youth teams and, later, the senior team.
Paul Pogba needed to do more work in midfield and that stunted his attacking potential against Germany, but he still found space to come up with the little moment of magic to set up the second goal, sparking wild celebrations for the home fans. It’s a role that we’ve often seen him play under Diego Simeone for his club as the player who picks up the ball in his team’s own half and uses his pace to instigate counterattacks.
“It’s not because we’re at home that we’ve got any extra strengths”, Deschamps said after Thursday’s 2-0 win against Germany, giving an insight into his side’s more pragmatic style of play.
The Atletico Madrid marksman tops the Euro 2016 scorers table with six goals but is now focused on getting his hands on the cup when they play Portugal in Paris tomorrow. It wasn’t nice because we brought French football into disrepute and gave a very negative image of the game in this country.
After the match in the Stade Velodrome dressing room, Deschamps told his players he was proud of them but there was one more game to be played and a final to be won.
Sunday’s European Championship final between host France and Portugal will be a hotly contested matchup between two of Europe’s most premier sides.
There was lots of drama, plenty of tension and in the end, the teams were divided by the quality of the lead strikers. But we were in a dilemma that which team will be facing France. “We have climbed back up the slope, we have done it step by step”. “We believe in ourselves, we have always believed”.
“We’ve already [written history]”.
“I hope this time we will be the winners”, said Joao Mario.
Ronaldo has never tasted victory against France, but he is not alone as Portugal have lost the last 10 meetings between the countries, stretching back to 1975. They are geared up to defend narrowly and sit tight while placing the responsibility of scoring on their flare players, so France will want the ball as much as possible to nullify Portugal’s threat as best it can.
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“The new rules improved the lives of referees and decisions are better understood by those watching us too”.
