Deschamps comes out fighting: ‘If you’re getting bored, watch another game’
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Didier Deschamps appeared in the press room at the Munich Football Arena and said he was dazzled by the lights. Well, it wasn’t by his team. France have reached the semi-final of the European Championship without having scored a goal of their own from open play in 480 minutes: their top marksman is own goal, on two, and the only other time they have found the net was a Kylian Mbappé penalty against Poland. But their coach says that if you find it boring, you can always go and watch something else.
The coach joked that a Swedish journalist must be “French really, disguised as Swedish” when it was put to him that, with the quality of players at his disposal, his France team are dull. “If you’re getting bored, watch another game,” he said. “You don’t have to watch – it’s fine. It’s a special Euros. It’s very difficult for everyone, with fewer goals. It hasn’t been the same as in the past, but we share the desire to make French men and women happy through the results we have been getting, especially in a period that has been hard for our country. But if the Swedish are getting bored, it doesn’t bother me much.”