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<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nDidier Deschamps conceded France were second best in the first leg of their Nations League quarter-final clash with Croatia, but is confident of overturning their two-goal deficit. <\/p>\n
France were beaten 2-0 by Zlatko Dalic\u2019s side on Thursday, with two first-half goals from Ante Budimir and Ivan Perisic doing the damage ahead of the return leg this Sunday. <\/p>\n
Indeed, Budmir\u2019s opener was the fourth headed goal that France have conceded in their last three international games, as many as they had let in their previous 53 matches. <\/p>\n
Perisic also became the first player since England\u2019s Wayne Rooney back in November 2015 to register a goal and an assist against France. <\/p>\n
France struggled to threaten their opponents in the first half, with Dominik Livakovic making comfortable saves from Ousmane Dembele and Kylian Mbappe. <\/p>\n
Deschamps\u2019 team improved after the break but were unable to make their pressure tell, falling to back-to-back defeats against Croatia for the very first time. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe made a good start, but there were losses of balls, technical errors. We gave opportunities to the opponent,\u201d Deschamps told TF1 after the match. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe second half was much better. Maignan saved the penalty. After that, it went on. We lost the ball. We did what we had to do in the second half without finding the efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result also saw Croatia extend their unbeaten run against France to three matches, surpassing the two-match streak they managed between June 2004 and March 2011 (D2).<\/p>\n
France welcome Croatia to the Stade de France in three days\u2019 time, and Deschamps is hoping to see attacking improvements when they meet again on Sunday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost the first set, we\u2019re going to make sure we win the second at home. Our first half was below what we were capable of doing,\u201d Deschamps added. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will do everything to turn the situation around. Everything we could give them in the first half, we were punished. There was far too much waste on the technical level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deschamps also discussed Mbappe\u2019s display at the Stadion Poljud, with the Real Madrid star making his first appearance for his nation since a 3-1 defeat to Italy last September.<\/p>\n
Mbappe ended the contest with team-high totals for shots on target (four), touches in the opposition box (10) and chances created (four). <\/p>\n
\u201cI found him very fit. He didn\u2019t succeed in everything,\u201d Deschamps said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was very available, made a lot of effort against a low block. He could always do better but was very available.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Read More<\/a>SoccerNews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soccer Didier Deschamps conceded France were second best in the first leg of their Nations League quarter-final clash with Croatia, but is confident of overturning their two-goal deficit. France were beaten 2-0 by Zlatko Dalic\u2019s side on Thursday, with two first-half goals from Ante Budimir and Ivan Perisic doing the damage ahead of the return […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":835699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45021,1272,2005],"tags":[115937,7839],"class_list":{"0":"post-835698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-deschamps","8":"category-everything","9":"category-soccer","10":"tag-deschamps","11":"tag-everything"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}