Griezmann paints picture of relaxed atmosphere in French camp

MOSCOW, July 13

If Antoine Griezmann’s jocular demeanour is anything to go by, France are far from overawed by the prospect of playing in the World Cup final and in buoyant spirits ahead of Sunday’s clash with Croatia. The diminutive striker was full of bonhomie on Friday at a news conference at the team’s training base outside of Moscow, joking with and teasing reporters as well as the team’s veteran press officer Philippe Tournon, who retires after the tournament.

“We lost when I was top goal scorer at Euro 2016,” he joked, “so this time I’ve tried to score fewer goals to see if it helped us to win. I have tried to manage my play, when to keep the ball, when to accelerate. If I score, so much the better, but I am a player who thinks first of all about the team.” 

He cut short a questioner who wanted a response to criticism from Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, who accused the French of playing negative football in their semifinal on Tuesday. “No, no, no … Let’s not go there. I don’t care about that. I want the star (on the jersey). How we play to win the game I do not care! Thibaut Courtois must stop (his criticism). Does his team Chelsea play like Barcelona?” 

Cloistered 

Asked what he had learned about himself over the last month of intense competition and being cloistered away in camp with the team, he said: “That I have remained the same. I play Fortnite all day, drink my mate and that’s what I love about me.” Fortnite is a survival video game and mate South American tea that Griezmann learnt to drink from his Uruguayan teammates at Atletico Madrid.

But he insisted he remains a Frenchman at heart despite his playing career being spent in Spain. “We have to be proud to be French. That’s not said often enough. We in France have a beautiful country, a good team, we eat well, we have good players — even good journalists,” he added, prompting laughter. — Reuters 

How Deschamps’s pragmatic approach took France to final

Despite having the most talented squad at the World Cup, France have made it to Sunday’s final against Croatia by embracing pragmatism over adventure, subsuming their individual flair for the collective benefit. The 1998 winners have not blazed their way to a third final in 20 years. Instead, their path has been a calculated shuffle, with coach Didier Deschamps abandoning plans for a free-flowing side in favour of a no-frills but highly effective winning machine that has kept four clean sheets in six games. France’s only truly impressive display in Russia was their epic 4-3 win over Argentina in the last 16, when they cut through Jorge Sampaoli’s dishevelled side on the counter-attack as Kylian Mbappe used his frightening power and pace to devastating effect. That thriller was followed by solid 2-0 win over Uruguay in the quarter-finals and a slender 1-0 victory over Belgium in the semis. In both games they found an opening from a set piece and then sat back, ceded possession, stayed solid and looked to pick their opponents off on the break. It has not been the sweeping display many believe the team is capable of, but it has been good enough to take them to a second consecutive major tournament final and Deschamps has altered his strategy to get them there.