In last night’s 2-1 win over Romania, Didier Deschamps has offered explanations on why he made the hard choice of removing Paul Pogba in the match to secure victory for France.
Dimitri Payet would go ahead to score the goal which sealed maximum three points for the French team in a cagey match for both sides, being the first game at the Euro 2016.
At the post-match conference, the coach was asked for his comments on the unexpected substitution and he said: “I made a choice.
“I don’t know how many minutes were remaining. I wanted to give us an attacking boost. We had four attacking players to try to secure the victory.
Manchester United striker Anthony Martial replaced Pogba to add more attacking power to the French side. The coach, however, refused to blame the Juventus midfielder for lack of quality displays.
Didier continued: “By keeping Dimitri Payet in the heart of the midfield, we had to take off a midfielder.”
“Paul, of course, can play better than that”, he said. “I’m not going to be too hard on him but his potential is such that he can contribute more than he showed tonight.”
The French manager who was part of the 1998 World Cup winning side believes it was important to get a win in the first match.
He added: “There were a lot of expectations, there’s so much passion and fervor behind the French national side.
“The players are aware of that… so, of course, from a psychological perspective it was in no way easy to manage.
“I imagine it was very hard for the Romanians to lose a match like that right at the death, but that will give us even greater confidence and calmness.”
France’ next challenge at Euro 2016 is against Albania on June 15.
Meziesblog 
Leave a reply to Werner Cancel reply