Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.
Desire Doue agreed with Zinedine Zidane in believing France are “on the right track” despite dropping points in the Nations League against Italy.
In Zidane’s first home match as France boss, Les Bleus were held to a 1-1 draw by Italy at the Stade de France.
Michael Olise opened the scoring with a stunning free-kick 10 minutes into the second half, but Alessandro Bastoni equalised after a costly mistake from Adrien Rabiot.
France failed to win a match after having opened the scoring for the first time since September 2024, when they lost 3-1 at home to Italy in the Nations League.
Dayot Upamecano also received a late red card after being shown a second yellow for dragging down Moise Kean.
He is the first player in the history of the France national team to receive two red cards in the same calendar year, after also being sent off against Brazil back in March.
Nevertheless, Doue took positives from the result, and so did Zidane.
“We’re disappointed with the result; we would have liked to win in front of our fans,” said the Paris Saint-Germain forward.
“We’re not going to dwell on the negatives; we applied the coach’s instructions in many aspects. We’re on the right track, as he told us in the locker room.
“We’re capable of creating a lot of danger; in the first half, they were very solid. We need to be more clinical; we came up against a great goalkeeper. But we stuck together.”
Nos Bleus concèdent le match nul face à l’Italie, mais conservent leur première place dans le groupe #FRAITA pic.twitter.com/DXD6ZdkA1i
— Equipe de France (@equipedefrance) October 2, 2026
Zidane added: “I’m very disappointed, we deserved better, but that’s football. We should have killed the game off, but I’m proud of my players.
“The performance was very good, my players were exemplary. I’m frustrated for my players because they gave everything.
“We had possession in the first half but it was sterile, that’s what we tried to correct at half-time. To hurt the opponent, you have to exploit the spaces.
“In terms of our play, we put things in place, they played their game, defensive, ‘Italian style’. We weren’t in too much danger.”
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