France exit Women’s World Cup with mix of regret and optimism

BRISBANE, Australia — Grace Geyoro could not stop tears coming down her cheeks. As she started to speak just a few minutes after France‘s heartbreaking exit on penalties against Australia in their Women’s World Cup quarterfinal, she couldn’t hold her emotions in anymore. On the pitch, the 26-year-old hugged and comforted her teammates after the final whistle. Now, it was her time to let go. So she paused, dried her tears, took a deep breath and tried to make sense of the past 150 minutes or so of her life.

“It hurts a lot,” she told ESPN. “That’s football, though. We gave everything. I am so proud of all the girls and of the staff. There is nothing more that I could ask of them. We worked so hard, and today we have a unit. We need to fight now to do better next time. We had chances, we were aggressive, but we lacked a bit of efficiency in front of goals.”

Finally, before leaving with her head down, she added: “The biggest regret is that we lost knowing we gave everything.”

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She should hold her head high. Despite some moments in the match where the French lost their rhythm and their momentum a little as they were put under pressure by Australia, Les Bleues fought hard and could have won the match before it went to penalties. Eugénie Le Sommer even confessed afterward: “I have never lost a game I thought for so long I was going to win.”

In the locker room, France coach Herve Renard had similar words for his squad. Sources have told ESPN that he addressed his players by saying: “You had an exceptional game. I am proud of you and you should be proud of yourselves. What we have achieved here is great and we will build on it for the future.”

After the head coach, captain Wendie Renard also spoke to the rest of the squad. “I told them how proud I am of all of them, of all the players, of the staff, of the chefs, of everyone,” she said afterward. “We were solid tonight. We lost but we were tough and that’s very important. We had 50,000 people against us and it could easily have gone our way.”

Of course, not everything was perfect against the Matildas and there will be things to improve, starting with the depth of the squad. On Saturday, Renard didn’t have enough options on the bench to influence the game, which ended goalless after 120 minutes. With the return from injury of key players such as Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Delphine Cascarino and Amandine Henry, this will get better. The younger players, such as Selma Bacha and Vicki Bècho, will learn from this experience, and gain the sort of maturity which helps in situations like the one they faced in Brisbane.

Renard was also concerned about the mental aspect of this game against Australia and their fans. Some of his players seemed inhibited by the pressure and didn’t perform to their best. “Obviously, emotionally it is not easy to deal with having 50,000 people against you like that,” Élisa De Almeida told ESPN. “They pushed them. We could feel the crowd.”

The defender, who stopped what looked like a certain goal for Australia’s Mary Fowler with an exceptional goal-line clearance, added that overall there are more positives for France to take away from this World Cup than negatives.

“We created an incredible squad together,” she said. “In terms of solidarity and team spirit, we could not do better. We are proud of what we achieved together. We have just spent 50 days together, it was not easy but the experience has been amazing and it can only serve us for the future.”

With the Olympic Games in Paris less than a year away, there is a lot to look forward to for coach Renard, who has only been in charge since March. From where this team began 2023 — overshadowed by the row with Corinne Diacre that led to the former head coach being fired and a divided locker room — to where they are now, they have come a long way.

“We have built something special, we showed it tonight and we will keep building on it,” Renard said. “The story here stops now but there is more to come. We will come back stronger.”