Knocked out by Spain, Deschamps accepts the pain before the third-place playoff against England

Didier Deschamps spoke on Wednesday at Bentley University’s training centre on the outskirts of Boston, the day after France’s elimination from the 2026 World Cup semi-final against Spain (0-2). The head coach accepted the underperformance without trying to downplay the blow.

“There is enormous disappointment, in line with our ambitions,” he said. “We have to be factual and accept the defeat, there is no choice. We came up against a very good Spain team, who raised their level. That’s top-level football.”

On his squad’s ability to bounce back, Deschamps was determined: “The players have experienced other difficult moments, defeats, eliminations. When you are a competitor, you have that desire, that expectation, a lot of confidence. Obviously, when you don’t meet the target you wanted, it has to hurt. And it’s good that it hurts. We must not trivialize that.”

The head coach also briefly returned to referee Barton’s decisions, which he had contested immediately after the final whistle, while choosing restraint: “I won’t talk about everything, after an elimination everything is always misinterpreted, but there were also decisions that led to consequences that could have been different for us.”

The focus is now on the third-place playoff scheduled for Saturday against England. A victory would give France a third bronze medal in its history, after 1958 and 1986. “We have another appointment waiting for us, it’s not on Sunday but Saturday. We have to clear away this enormous disappointment. Our duty will be to do everything we can on Saturday, because it’s our last match in this competition,” Deschamps concluded, whose tenure as France manager now spans fourteen years.