PARIS, June 30 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron did not delay in reacting on social networks to the victory of the French football team, who defeated Argentina 4-3 in the first round of 16 World Cup match on Saturday.
Macron, a fan of the beautiful game, congratulated Les Bleus and reiterated his promise to go see them play after the quarterfinals next Friday, when they will meet Uruguay.
Speaking on the French TF1 television channel, head coach Didier Deschamps expressed his happiness, "It was a great display, there were errors of course, we were in bad shape at 2-1, we could have made the end of the match easier, but there were a lot of emotions.
"It's only happiness, it has been weeks that we have been preparing for this. We said we were here. There are always criticisms, we made some errors, but we made the Argentinians suffer. Now, we have to take advantage, we have six days ahead of us," he said.
Twenty years after the first victory of the World Cup trophy for France, France are under strong expectations by their pubic in this tournament.
At 19, Kylian Mbappe, elected man of the match, sealed the win and entered the record books in becoming the youngest player to have scored three goals in a World Cup.
"We are content. I felt good, like my teammates and we told ourselves that together we could do beautiful things. We had a complicated group phase, but there you have it, against a big team, great players, we succeed to play a full match." he said at the end of the match, speaking to BeIN Sports.
During this post-match interview, his teammate Antoine Griezmann, euphoric, literally snatched the microphone in his hands to shout: "Long live France and long live the Republic!"
