French national team coach Didier Deschamps said that he was afraid that Kylian Mbappe would be exposed to what he called an “assault,” noting that he asked the larger players to impose “special guard” around the team captain in the last minutes, after Paraguay turned the round of 16 match in the FIFA World Cup into a violent battle, before France made its way to the quarter-finals with a 1-0 victory on Saturday.
Deschamps said: I asked the bigger players to stand around Kylian at the end because they were going to knock him down. It wasn’t easy. They used every trick possible. This is not the kind of football that attracts fans to the stadium, but they defended well.
He added: The matches are always difficult against these teams coming from South America. (Arabic)
