France legend Patrick Vieira did not mince words when assessing the performance of French stars Kylian Mbappé, Michael Olise, Ousmane Dembélé, and others after losing 2-0 to Spain and being eliminated from the World Cup.
“Spain won the game in every aspect. The French team didn’t turn up at all. I said before that Spain needed to be at their best to beat the French team and they did it,” Vieira said during an appearance of ITV1 (as captured by NDTV). “Olise was the main man, we needed him to get on the ball,
but they stopped him playing, he didn’t get on the ball. It was a big expectation of France to win the World Cup. We are all really disappointed by the result but mostly by the performance. We needed our top players to perform today, and they didn’t do it. It wasn’t one or two, it was all of them collectively. It was really bad.”
Vieira was also critical of France left-back Lucas Digne, whose penalty put Spain up 1-0 in the first half and played a role with Désiré Doué in Spain scoring its second half goal.
“Digne of course should do better. We are talking about someone with experience. But on the other side, Doué has the responsibility as well,” Vieira said. “The one-two was played around him, he has to be around him to stop his run or follow him. We can blame Digne for his tactical position, but Doué has to be more decisive and more defensive-minded.”
In short, Spain was just better than France on the day and outplayed the 2018 World Cup champs. For Viera, the players should be held accountable for their failures to perform when called upon.
