France’s earliest goal at this summer’s European Championships arrived in the 57th minute, against Romania, and supporters of Les Bleus won’t appreciate the fact that Didier Deschamps’ side are guilty of moping out of the traps, rather than bursting.
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Brady’s second minute penalty, which was awarded after Paul Pogba had fouled Shane Long, gave Ireland something to hold onto as it attempted to pull off what would have been one of the most stunning results in the tournament’s history.
“I know that we knew about it before, but it is an incredible amount of time one side could have as an advantage over another team”.
“Griezmann saved the team but I think we would have scored even without Griezmann”.
Martin O’Neill has said that whether or not some of the senior Irish players choose to hang up their global boots following the team’s exit from Euro 2016 will be entirely up to them. “We were chasing the game and that’s the most hard thing”. Giroud headed down into Griezmann’s path, who slammed home the winning goal four minutes later.
“We didn’t play well in the first half and we said things in the changing room”, said Griezmann.
“It was stormy”, added the Atletico Madrid striker.
Deschamps said France got better when they shook off the early tension and went “a bit crazy”.
In fact we have to improve if we want to have a say in this tournament. We rattled them. We got the goal and it actually settled us down.
In the first 45 minutes, his forwards were unable to carve up a clear-cut opportunity. Moments later, Griezmann found the net.
“We know what it is like to be a keeper”.
“Griezmann was quite deep so we wanted Griezmann closer to (Olivier) Giroud, bring in some speed with Kingsley Coman out wide, to create some space and use width a bit better”, he explained.
“It’s up to them now to take it further”.
“We felt it was there for us and we gave our all”. But above all, to get more presence up front – the four attacking players all created chances.
Deschamps said the three tight last-16 matches on Saturday, two of which went to extra-time, showed there are no easy games in the tournament.
“Disappointed we couldn’t carry it through [from a] great position at half-time”, he said.
“You shouldn’t be too calculated”.
“Sometimes it’s hard. When you concede a penalty at the start of a match, it made us tense and the Irish can play a bit”, he told TF1.
“The good thing to remember is that we are mentally strong”.
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The hosts now go on to face either England or Iceland in the last eight – while Ireland will return home after a fine campaign, but with hopes of revenge dashed: a victory would have been the flawless way for them to exorcise the demon of Thierry Henry’s famous 2009 handball assist which probably denied Ireland a spot in the 2010 World Cup.
