‘There is joy, despite the context’ – Didier Deschamps reacts to France’s World Cup qualification

It was a night of mixed emotions at the Parc des Princes. France booked their place in the FIFA World Cup thanks to a 4-0 win over Ukraine on Thursday, however, it came on the same night as the nation marked the 10-year anniversary of the 13th November attacks, which began at a France match at the Stade de France. 

Didier Deschamps said pre-match that it would have been better if Les Bleus had not played on this day, however, the match did go ahead. Post-match, Deschamps described a “heavy and oppressive” atmosphere as goals from Kylian Mbappé, Michael Olise, and Hugo Ekitiké secured Les Bleus’ place in the finals.

Deschamps says France head to World Cup with ‘ambitions’

The France manager spoke about “joy” being “contained” due to the context surrounding the fixture. “There was joy this evening, despite the context of this match,” he told the media post-match. 

For the first time, he then evoked the upcoming World Cup, which will take place in the USA, Canada, and Mexico. “It is a new format, with more teams, an extra match, and quite a few complications over there. We have already thought about it quite a bit with the staff, and we’ll have answers on 5th December. We have ambition, but we have to take it step by step, with strange weather conditions. We’ll have to consider the timings, recovery periods in between matches, and we’ll have to go into depth on all of that. But we are going there with ambition,” said Deschamps.

GFFN | Luke Entwistle