ARLINGTON, Texas — France head coach Didier Deschamps said his team wasn’t technically sound enough in his team’s 2-0 loss to Spain in the FIFA World Cup semifinals.
“To have any hope, we needed to be at our best,” he said. “Unfortunately, we weren’t.”
Spain took the lead on an early penalty from Mikel Oyarzabal, then found an insurance goal from Pedro Porro, assisted by Dani Olmo, in the 58th minute.
At the time of Porro’s goal, Spain had attempted eight shots to France’s two and had won 60% of all duels. France finished with 10 shot attempts, but only one was within 13 meters of the goal, and only three were on target.
“Today [Spain] defended extremely well,” Deschamps said. “They left us very little space. On top of that, because we made technical mistakes, it became difficult to create problems for them. Our technical level was below what we’d shown in previous matches.”
Over France’s first six matches, forwards Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé and Michael Olise combined for 13 goals and 10 assists. Against Spain, they combined for only five shot attempts worth 0.15 xG.
“Compared with them, in our passing combinations and sequences, they’re also excellent at reading the game and intercepting passes,” Deschamps noted. “We couldn’t find solutions. I don’t want to say that our attacking and technical expression simply disappeared on its own. That’s normally one of our strengths.
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“There was also a lot of merit on the opponent’s side. I’m not going to condemn everything we did or erase what we’ve accomplished. But I’ll repeat it: in a match like this, against a team like Spain, you have to be at your absolute maximum. France wasn’t at that level tonight.”
Deschamps also questioned the performance of referee Iván Arcides Barton Cisnero.
Oyarzabal’s penalty kick in the 22nd minute came after Lamine Yamal drew a foul when kicked by defender Lucas Digne.
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After a poor first touch with his head, Digne was trying to clear the ball when Yamal raced in from behind to challenge in the penalty area. The ball hit off the elbow of the leaping teen before he was kicked by Digne.
“If I say anything, I’ll look like a sore loser because we lost,” Deschamps said. “But I ask you: is the referee up to the task of officiating a semifinal? There’s the penalty, but that’s not all; it adds to everything else. I have nothing against the referee tonight, but ask yourselves the question.”
The loss prevented France from reaching a third consecutive World Cup final; only West Germany (1982, 1986 and 1990) and Brazil (1994, 1998 and 2002) have achieved that feat. Still, it was their third straight trip to the semifinals and fourth straight trip to the quarterfinals. And it was only their second loss in regulation in their last 21 World Cup matches.
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“We didn’t control things well enough,” Deschamps said. “The opponent forced us into mistakes. But this was a World Cup semifinal. For two of [our] players it was their first one. That doesn’t take away anything from what we did well before this. I don’t want to diminish everything that had been accomplished.”
Deschamps’ 14-year tenure as France’s head coach will come to an end with Saturday’s third-place match against the loser of the England–Argentina semifinal. ESPN reported that Zinedine Zidane agreed to become his successor this spring.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
