Round of 16 – recap: France 2-0 Nigeria / Germany 2-0 Algeria (0-0 after regular time)
Quarterfinal FRANCE-GERMANY
Coach France Deschamps ahead of France-Germany:
“I’m a realist, my target, like my players, is Friday. “It doesn’t serve any purpose to look any further ahead. The reality now is Germany on Friday. Everyone can dream, including me, but I’m a pragmatist and a realist, Friday is the only thing that counts.”
“We’re going there to give it everything we’ve got. We haven’t made a mess of our World Cup. I’m very proud and the players deserve it, it’s a huge pleasure for me and my staff to be involved on a daily basis with them and to manage them, to be with them. But we’re not going there as tourists on Friday.”
Coach Germany Low demand improvement:
“We must be better (than against Algeria) for the match against the French. It was a victory of the will. During the first half we were poor, we gave away a lot of ball, which invited Algeria to counter-attack us. Other teams such as Brazil have also struggled at times, it’s no walk in the park here”.
“I wouldn’t want to talk about France-Germany in 1982, but those have always been dramatic classics between the team. Didier Deschamps has turned them around since 2010, they have good players like (Karim) Benzema and (Olivier) Giroud who can decide games on their own. We’re looking forward to another classic.”
