No France player rated better than Hugo Lloris on Sunday evening, at least according to L’Equipe, and whilst that sounds like reasonably good news, when it’s seen the Tottenham player only got a 5 it shows how poor the performance was generally.
France, at home in Toulouse, were expected to steamroll Luxembourg, but their star-studded side couldn’t score a solitary goal. Lloris’ 5 looks good compared to the 2 of Laurent Koscielny, or the 3 of man-of-the-moment Thomas Lemar.
After the match, Lloris spoke to the press and L’Equipe say he had a ‘message to deliver’. It’s pointed out the Tottenham goalkeeper isn’t the type to raise his tone, so the messages to teammates were probably far too subtle for most.
Lloris explained: “I do’t want to be pessimistic, nor optimistic, just be realistic. It was not a lack of effort on our part, there was some application but in the last thirty metres, it took a lot more.”
That France failed to score is the big concern, and Lloris couldn’t have done a lot more personally, keeping a clean sheet for his country.
Again refusing to outright criticise the performance, the Tottenham goalkeeper added: “We missed that bit of luck that could have helped us. It will be necessary to work over the last two qualifying matches”
L’Equipe seem to be dressing Lloris’ ‘message’ up as something bigger than it actually was, with the national captain simply not prepared to point too many fingers.
