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July 5, 2016

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France stops Iceland run, eyes Germany

FRANCE’S players immediately turned their minds to a semifinal with Germany after putting Iceland to the sword in a 5-2 win at Euro 2016.

Four goals in the first half helped France progress to its first semifinal in a major tournament since 2006 and it will face world champion Germany in Marseille on Thursday.

“We are into the last week and I’m very happy about that,” said Didier Deschamps. “Germany are the best team. There is no doubt about that even if they had a few frights against Italy, who stopped them playing.

“But we are in the final four and we will go for it against the best team in the world.”

France will try to beat the world champion in a competitive game for the first time since the 1958 World Cup, although it beat them in a friendly last November on the night that militants struck in Paris.

“We had the ambition to win and start the game well which we did. We were able to score a lot which was good for confidence,” said midfielder Dimitri Payet, who scored his third goal of the tournament. “We now face the world champion and know what to expect. We need to rest and use what we learnt tonight.”

Man-of the-match Olivier Giroud warned that they would still need to improve at the back against Germany. “We need to cut out these small defensive mistakes,” he said.


 

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