The president made the best decision, to play this game.
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“It will be a good opportunity to represent the French nation”.
“Football’s a symbol and represents very important values”.
“The great thing about sport is it’s a way of uniting people, and it’s important it continues to do that”.
“I have always considered it an honour to wear this shirt”. In the face of such an atrocity, such barbarianism, it is hard to find words.
“But it has been very tough – for the victims, their families and our country”. There will be a lot of emotion from the players, but it will be a great moment of solidarity. “We’ve received it too from around the world”.
England’s Football Association left the decision over whether the game should go ahead entirely in the hands of French soccer officials. The explosions could be heard around the ground but the players were not informed about the gravity of the situation and the connected attacks across the city until after the final whistle.
“You never know what can happen but for us we have to assume we are safe on the pitch and hope we don’t have a repeat of what happened on Friday night”. The Germans wanted to stay behind, protected by the French state. We stayed with them. The last three days have been dramatic and I think we were in mourning all together.
“We are here to represent our country, our lovely colours of red, white and blue, with even more pride than before”, he said. But the decision to play wasn’t automatic, he said.
“The French nation is more important than the French football team at the moment”.
“Of course we respected their decision”.
“I just want to reconfirm that the security apparatus and the people that advise us say that there is no material risk so the game should go ahead”. We have been together and discussed it. We are human.
“But I think that all of that was very well managed by the coach, the technical staff and the president”. “We are playing for the victims and for our country”. We’re very, very grateful for the messages.
“We shared that traumatic moment with him”. He remained very quiet. But we try to stay focused. The Metropolitan Police earlier said that armed officers would be present at the stadium tomorrow night.
France coach Didier Deschamps called on his players to honour their “beautiful colours” after Friday’s events in Paris.
The game comes four days after a total of 129 people were killed in attacks across the French capital, Paris. I did it for A level (almost 30 years ago) and have been to France numerous times but I would beg for a few patience with my rustiness over the translation.
Three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the Stade de France on Friday when France were playing Germany in a friendly. Here’s video footage of French football fans singing the upon evacuating the Stade de France.
“All the players are coming”, Tournon said.
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Diarra’s cousin Asta Diakite died in the attacks.
