ANKARA
French national football team has been frustrated after the 1-1 draw against Turkey in Monday’s crucial UEFA EURO 2020 qualifiers game at home.
”Turkey were good defensively. We knew they were dangerous from set-pieces, especially at the back post and that’s how they equalized. There’s disappointment because we could have qualified tonight,” Bayern Munich’s French defender Lucas Hernandez said in a post-match interview.
Home team France has broken the deadlock at Stade de France in the 76th minute of the match as Chelsea striker Olivier Giroud scored by a header, giving the 1-0 lead for “Les Bleus” (The Blues).
But Turkey gave a quick response with the header made by Kaan Ayhan in the 82nd minute to secure the 1-1 draw in Saint-Denis.
France missed a chance for the early UEFA EURO 2020 qualification with this draw.
”We did what we needed in terms of the chances we created. We needed to be more clinical in front of goal. We’re still on course to fulfill our objectives and we need to finish off the work in November,” France manager Didier Deschamps said.
Moussa Sissoko, French midfielder, stated that it is frustrating to have conceded the equalizer in set-piece.
“We’ll learn from our errors and come back next month in order to stamp our ticket for Euro 2020,” he added.
Meanwhile the French star of Barcelona, Antoine Griezmann said that they played their best match against Turkey despite the draw.
“It’s a huge disappointment, because we had a big match. It has been a longtime that we didn’t play like that. I think it’s our best match in the qualifiers,” Griezmann said and adding that the result is frustrating for France.
Turkish defender Merih Demiral was the key player for Turkey to avoid the loss against France.
French sports daily L’Equipe named Juventus defender Demiral ”player of the match” for his excellent performance.
Turkey’s national team manager Senol Gunes praised his players’ performance during the post-match interview.
“A point is good for us and I’d like to congratulate my players. It’s very good to be going home to Turkey top of the group. We played against very strong opponents and they were better than us on the night. Taking four points from two games against France is a real achievement,” Gunes said.
Turkey won six games out of eight group matches to score 19 points.
Sitting on the second spot, France also earned 19 points in eight matches.
Iceland are on the third spot as they had 15 points.
Turkey and France still have big chance each to qualify for the EURO 2020 finals directly before the last two matches in the Group H.
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