Didier Deschamps is always immaculately dressed and not a strand of hair is out of place despite him arriving to the press conference after two hours of frantic pacing in the touchlines.
His team had scored two, but England constantly kept up the pressure and Deschamps feels lucky after scrapping through to the World Cup semifinals.
“We came up against an excellent team tonight. They were very technical, played with so much intensity. I regret that we gave them chances, such as the penalties we conceded. They missed the second one, luckily for us,” the France manager said.
“But without taking any credit away from my team, we knew how to do things right. We were able to create some dangerous chances before scoring the second. There was actually a brilliant piece of play where Ousmane [Dembele] set up Olivier [Giroud], and [Jordan] Pickford saved splendidly. Our quality was probably not enough to win tonight, but luck was on our side.”
Deschamps’s France can match Italy (1934, 38), Brazil (58, 62 and 98, 2002), the Netherlands (74, 78), Germany (82, 86, 90) and Argentina (86, 90) to reach back-to-back World Cup finals. Morocco, its semifinal opponents, however, has united the Arab world by becoming the first team from the region to reach the last four of the World Cups.
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“Few people can say that they expected Morocco to reach the World Cup semifinals. But, for everything they have done and for all the teams they have faced, for their performances, they’ve only let in one goal, it’s a bit of surprise, but they deserve to be where they are,” Deschamps said. “Now, we’ll have to face them. They’ll have the chance to reach the final too. We should always respect our opponents, all of them.”
Deschamps, who had captained France to World Cup glory in 1998, believes the four remaining teams in the competition deserve their spots in semifinals and should be proud after negotiating through a tricky group phase and two knockout matches. “There are four teams who have the chance, two spaces are available, to reach the final. And these teams have all done better than the other sides, faced different scenarios. I watched the other two quarterfinals yesterday. There was lots of emotion, twists and turns. This is also what football is all about. So, clearly, at the end of the game, you have one happy and one sad team,” he said. “You are well aware of the four teams that are happy this evening, and we are one of those four teams.”
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