{"id":692757,"date":"2026-07-15T09:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T09:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692757\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T09:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T09:57:17","slug":"france-0-2-spain-french-media-reacts-to-disappointing-world-cup-semi-final-loss-including-scathing-lequipe-player-ratings-football-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692757\/","title":{"rendered":"France 0-2 Spain: French media reacts to disappointing World Cup semi-final loss – including scathing L’Equipe player ratings | Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The French media delivered a frank assessment of the national team on Wednesday morning after their World Cup semi-final exit to Spain.<\/p>\n

France were below their usual high standards as they were beaten 2-0 in Dallas by the European champions. Mikel Oyarzabal’s first-half penalty was backed up by Pedro Porro’s second-half strike, as France’s much-vaunted front four fell flat.<\/p>\n

L’Equipe ran with an image of a forlorn Kylian Mbappe and the headline of “fallen star” – adding the team were “powerless” to stop Spain.<\/p>\n

\"L'EQUIPE\"<\/p>\n

The paper also published their brutal player ratings, with some big stars given low scores. No player was given above a 5\/10.<\/p>\n

Lucas Digne was given 2\/10 for his role in giving away the Spain penalty, but Ousmane Dembele and Michael Olise also got the same score after ineffective displays in attack.<\/p>\n

Kylian Mbappe was given a 3\/10 – along with France head coach Didier Deschamps, who takes charge of his final match in charge of the national team in Saturday’s third-place play-off.<\/p>\n

\"L'Equipe's<\/p>\n

Image:
\n L’Equipe’s player ratings for France 0-2 Spain<\/p>\n

Le Parisien went with the headline “rude awakening” – saying the team “never found the key to break down the Spanish Armada”.<\/p>\n

\"LE<\/p>\n

Corse Martin went for the Spanish word for “disappointment” on their front page – adding Didier Deschamps’ side were “outclassed” by their opponents.<\/p>\n

\"CORSE<\/p>\n

Le Figaro said Spain “taught France a lesson” while Ouest France described the loss as the “end of the American dream”.<\/p>\n

\"LE<\/p>\n

Every single French paper went with a disappointed looking Kylian Mbappe as their front-page image.<\/p>\n

\"OUEST‘We lost to ourselves’ – how the team reacted<\/p>\n

France midfielder Rayan Cherki: <\/p>\n

“It’s a huge disappointment, huge because today we lost to ourselves. We didn’t lose to the referee, we didn’t lose to Spain, we lost to ourselves.<\/p>\n

“Here, you all know, we all know we were a force to be reckoned with. The only team capable of eliminating us was ourselves, and today that’s exactly what happened.”<\/p>\n

France head coach Didier Deschamps:<\/p>\n

“The Spanish team is a strong one. It is tough and proved their skills today. We were below our standard, we committed more technical flaws than before.<\/p>\n

“And even though I believed the entire would recover, they did not. I have really skilled and top-notch players on the bench, but William Saliba got injured, Adrien Rabiot was at risk because of the yellow card.<\/p>\n

“It is mainly due to that – and we know the skills of the Spanish team. And to hope for victory, we should have been at our maximum and given it all and we did not, unfortunately.<\/p>\n

“Therefore, we are extremely disappointed tonight. And the first part is the important one – some decisions were questionable.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The French media delivered a frank assessment of the national team on Wednesday morning after their World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-692757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}