Kazan: France head coach Didier Deschamps said Saturday that his team must and will do better in the next game following their 2-1 hard-fought win over Australia in the World Cup Group C opener.
“The first match is always a major hurdle. We are very happy that we won a highly difficult and complicated game,” said Deschamps after the game Saturday.
“I think we lacked some speed in the passes and we did not push forward and move backward very quickly. We have not done a great game, although they have had only one opportunity which is the penalty we gave them. I do not want to say too much because they are going to sound like excuses. I think we’ve let Australia slow down the game,” added the French coach.
Regarding the first-used VAR technology which helped France earn a penalty, the 49-year-old coach said ‘an error has been corrected’ because of the new technology.
“The referee did not see there was a foul and he rectified,” responded Deschamps after being questioned about the goal action of Antoine Griezmann who scored the first VAR-assisted penalty. “An error is corrected and it is positive.”
One of our main flaws against Australia was that we lacked vision and speed in offensive dimension. These are the areas we need to work upon
Didier Deschamps
Deschamps also hailed Paul Pogba’s performance and the late goal for the Manchester United star midfielder. “He is a great player with great potential and has got what it takes. I think he felt more comfortable in the way we played today (Saturday) with three midfielders. He has the freedom to do more,” Deschamps pointed out.
