Phil HaighPublished Jul 10, 2024, 4:52pm|Updated Jul 10, 2024, 5:29pm
Antoine Griezmann was left frustrated by France’s Euro 2024 exit (Picture: Getty Images)Antoine Griezmann was left frustrated with his France teammates and aiming digs at manager Didier Deschamps after semi-final defeat to Spain at Euro 2024 on Tuesday night.
A brilliant game finished 2-1 in Spain’s favour as Luis de la Fuente’s side booked their place in Sunday’s final thanks to goals from Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo.
France had taken the lead through Randal Kolo Muani, but succumbed to the impressive Spanish team, which remains the only one in the competition to have won all of their games so far.
Griezmann was not sugarcoating the defeat, admitting Spain were better than France in all areas, scolding his teammates for not dealing with issues which they knew were going to arise.
‘They were better than us,’ Griezmann told Telefoot. ‘We knew they could hit the ball well from distance and we let them shoot from distance. We knew Lamine is left-footed and we let him hit it with his left foot.
‘The equaliser hurt us and the second goal four minutes later killed us. That’s football, we lacked that today. It was our strong point from the start but we lost against a strong Spain.
‘No excuses about having legs cut off or anything, they played extra time too. They were better in everything.’
Griezmann had to settle for a place on the bench against Spain (Picture: Getty Images)Griezmann came off the bench just after the hour mark in Munich, but could not rescue the game for his country.
The 33-year-old had started four of France’s previous five games in the tournament and did not sound impressed with Deschamps’ decision to bench him in the semi-finals.
Nor did he appear enamoured with some of his manager’s tactical decisions.
‘I started badly. Afterwards, I felt better and better, and I ended up on the bench,’ said the Atletico Madrid forward.
‘We’ll come back. I tried to give my all with a lot of tactical and positional changes. You had to adapt all the time.’
MORE : Didier Deschamps will ‘continue his mission’ as France manager, says FFF president
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