French focus on Cyprus
Domenech, struggling to compensate for the loss of so many of their World Cup and European Championship winners, suggested fans should not be surprised France have been held scoreless now by Israel and Ireland in two home matches.
He said France were a team in transition but admitted he was not entirely happy with their performance on Saturday.
He said: “I cannot say I was satisfied with the performance, you are never happy with a 0-0 draw at home. But this was another step towards our re-construction.”
Domenech has come under fire from the French press in recent times because of the team’s uninspiring performances and a perceived inability on his part to keep major stars like Zidane, Thuram, Makalele, Lizarazu available while he is trying to introduce some new players.
The tension between himself and the French press was evident in the brevity of his answers to their queries after the match. His conference did not last very long.
He said: “We had our good periods and we had difficult periods, we were competing with an opponent of quality. France is a team under construction and we have made progress because we showed more than we showed against Israel.”
Asked to explain his decision to replace centre-forward Cisse for the closing ten minutes, he said: “You make these decisions based on what you see from where you sit. When you are drawing 0-0 with ten minutes left you want to try and win the match, so you have to try something and I did not want to split the defence and the attack so it seemed logical.”
He was adamant the team has continued to develop with each match under his control and he added: “Now our aim is to continue to progress the work as we have been doing, to continue to give the players confidence and to keep the sequence of results going.”
Asked just how far he believed the team had progressed, he said: “You cannot assess where exactly you are in terms of development halfway through the race. We are engaged in the process of building a team and that takes time.”
He seemed happier when he looked ahead: “The Irish gave us problems but now our aim is to overcome Cyprus on Wednesday and we would hope to do a little better against Cyprus.
“The Irish had good periods in the game and there was a balance between the teams, they were well matched. Ireland have got good players.
“Ireland have shown the best form in the group so far.”
Despite the result, French players said they were heading in the right direction.
“We have nothing to feel guilty about,” said midfielder Robert Pires.
“We are playing better on every match and we have had a pretty good outing tonight. We never gave up anything and we kept focused until the end.
“We tried to play with more will and more dedication. We may take it for a reference for the future.”
France qualified for Euro 2004 with a 100% record in their eight games, conceding only two goals, though Pires said the path to Germany 2006 would be tougher.
“It’s a well balanced group,” the Arsenal player added of the qualifying group that includes Euro 2004 finalists Switzerland. “Which means we will have to struggle until the end to qualify (for the 2006 World Cup finals).
“It’s much more interesting.”
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