Deschamps happy with France spirit but sees room for improvement

France coach Didier Deschamps was happy with his team's commitment in Tuesday's 1-0 win over Germany at Euro 2020 but said the world champions must look to retain possession better through the rest of the tournament.

France handed a sluggish-looking Germany their first opening-game defeat in the Euros, courtesy of an own goal by Mats Hummels in the 20th minute.

Stats showed that France had just over 40% possession and only four attempts on goal but Deschamps said they were more clinical than Joachim Loew's side.

"I wouldn't say that we did dominate them because we played against a good team in Germany who caused us problems," Deschamps said.

"They had a lot of ball possession, more than us. We were defending very well. It was a match played on a very high level, two titans facing each other.

"We could have done things better, especially in ball possession, and looking at the attitude to show this dominance, to suffer all together, when we showed this commitment on the pitch today against the very strong German side."

France midfielder Paul Pogba accused Antonio Rudiger of "nibbling" him on the shoulder during the game but said he was not looking for the Germany defender to face punishment.

The two players clashed towards the end of the first half, with Rudiger caught on camera putting his face close to Pogba's back before reaching his arms around the Frenchman's chest.

"I'm not crying for cards, yellow, red cards because of such actions," Pogba said. "He nibbled, I think, a little bit on me. But we have known each other for a long time.

"I told the referee and he takes decisions and he took a decision. It's over.

"It was a great match for us ... and I didn't want him to be suspended because of such a situation. It was towards the end of the match. We hugged each other and that's it."

Germany coach Joachim Loew believes they can fix the problems that resulted in their sluggish performance.

"Tomorrow we have to process things but look ahead," Loew told reporters. "We lost, we are disappointed but we still have two games and we can fix it."

The Germans next face holders Portugal in Group F before taking on Hungary, with all of their group games in Munich. Portugal beat Hungary 3-0 in Tuesday's early game.

"We tried to play from the wings. We knew they were crowded in the middle and were tough on the one-on-ones. So we had to operate with crosses," said the German coach.

"Robin Gosens and Joshua Kimmich did enormous work in attack and we also had that chance with Serge Gnabry. We maybe lacked the final punch in and around the box."

Germany played without an out-and-out striker and Gnabry, who fired over the bar with one of Germany's best chances, operating in the middle as a centre forward.

But the French were much sharper throughout and were lethal on the break while Germany only rarely managed to threaten.

Loew, in his last tournament in charge after 15 years, said the French ran a lot to close down the spaces but it was hard to shut out players like Kylian Mbappe out over a full 90 minutes.

"The goal was to go high to play it out to the wings," Loew said. "We had enough attacking options.

"In the back we had to close the centre because they play amazing counter attacks. Mbappe you cannot shut him out over the entire game. (Antoine) Griezmann and (Karim) Benzema as well but overall we did it well.

"We tried everything," he said. "We fought over ninety minutes but what we were missing was a goal. But the attitude was outstanding as was our ambition and I know we can bend this back into shape."

- Reuters