Zidane: France ‘deserved more’, Italy ‘defended well’

France coach Zinedine Zidane insists Les Blues ‘deserved more’ in a home game against Italy: ‘They defended well; I’m happy with the performance, not with the result.’

Italy held France to a 1-1 draw at Saint-Denis in Paris on Friday night. Michael Olise scored the opening goal with a fantastic free-kick in the second half, but Alessandro Bastoni levelled the score just 13 minutes later, scoring his second consecutive goal.

“I’m disappointed because we deserved more. We had chances to kill the game off, but we didn’t. Sometimes this is how football is,” Zidane told Rai Sport at full-time, via Gianluca Di Marzio.

This match was Zidane’s home debut as France’s coach, as Les Bleus had played the first two Nations League group-stage games away.

“It was thrilling; we wanted to give joy to the stadium and the whole nation, but it’s not how it went,” Zidane said.

“Italy played their game. If you have a chance to score, you must do it, because otherwise these things can happen. I’m happy with what we did. Now we have to rest and prepare for the next game.

“This is Italy; they can have a bad game sometimes, but also a good one. They won in Turkiye, and tonight they played their game. They defended well, and when they attack, they can always score.”

The French coach added at a post-match press conference: “I’m happy with the performance, not with the result. We deserved more, but this is football. We had some chances to score the second goal, but we didn’t. I’m proud of my players and what we did tonight.”

Italy will play next Monday again, in the last match of this long break, hosting Vincenzo Montella’s Turkiye at the Stadio Dall’Ara in Bologna.

The Azzurri have earned four points in the first three games, losing to Belgium, beating Turkiye, and drawing with France.