France coach Laurent Blanc admits he didn’t expect Sweden to be so strong in Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat which means Les Bleus will face reigning champions Spain in the Euro 2012 quarterfinals.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic put Sweden ahead with a brilliant volley on 54 minutes, before Sebastian Larsson fired home from close range to clinch a farewell victory for the Scandanavians who bow out of the Euros.
However, France missed the chance to clinch top spot in Group D with a victory, meaning they face Spain in the final eight, while England, who topped the group, take on Italy next.
“We need to stay optimistic, we didn’t make thing easy for ourselves. It is not the easiest thing to play Spain at the moment, we have to be rested and need a really good performance to beat them,” Blanc admitted.
“But we are going to focus and are going to fight. Tomorrow will be more optimistic than tonight and I hope by Saturday we will be at a higher level.”
As for the defeat where Blanc opted not to select Jeremy Menez and Yoann Cabaye, he was disappointed with the overall performance, admitting the Swedes caught them by surprise.
“Did we think it was going be as difficult as it was going turned out be? No we didn’t expect that,” he said.
“We were weak in certain areas of the pitch, too weak in the tackle. Sweden put everything into the game, they were better prepared physically and they have a player [Zlatan Ibrahimović] who can make the difference – a lot of factors that meant we couldn’t win. We are very disappointed.”