"We could have been more efficient," says France's manager Didier Deschamps after 1-0 over Greece
Jun 21, 2023
Paris [France], June 21 : Greece was defeated by France 1-0 in the UEFA EURO Qualifiers match on Tuesday at the Stade de France stadium. Following the defeat, France's manager Didier Deschamps said, we could have been more efficient, as per the official website of UEFA.
France was made to work hard to get a win as Greece gave a tough time to them. France failed to score from the open play as Greece defended well. France was later awarded for their efforts as they scored from a penalty to win the match.
After the win, in the post-match interview, France's manager Didier Deschamps said, "It's part of the job to beat Gibraltar. It was more complicated today. We had chances. We could have been more efficient," according to the official website of UEFA.
He further added, "We scored four goals across the two matches and didn't concede. The players are positive, even if we could have scored more. It is the players who have this ambition. They are competitors. They know what they want. We can always improve. It's just the chances-to-goals ratio that could and should have been higher."
France are on top of Group B with 12 points. They have played four games and have won all four.
In Group B, France is along with Greece, Ireland, Netherlands and Gibraltar.
France is on top of the group, they are clear favourites to advance to the EURO 2024 competition.
The first half ended as a 0-0 draw with either team failing to find the back of the net.
In the second half, France was awarded a penalty in the 55th minute of the match.
Kylian Mbappe scored from the penalty spot to give a 1-0 lead to France.
Greece tried their best to come back in the game but they were denied every time by French defenders.
The game was very tight as Greece kept France under pressure most of the time. But in the 69th minute, Greece's defender Konstantinos Mavropanos was shown a red card as he denied a goal-scoring opportunity to France's attacker.
Therefore, Greece was left with 10 men to play the remaining 20 minutes of the match. Thus, their chances for a comeback were cut short and they eventually failed to score a goal.
France took 19 shots out of which five were on target. They had a total of 64 per cent of possession on the ball during the match. France completed a total of 703 passes with an accuracy of 91 per cent.
Greece took six shots out of which two were on targets. Their possession on the ball during the match was 37 per cent. They completed a total of 426 passes with an accuracy of 82 per cent.