Hugo Lloris maintained that France must avoid excuses after their dramatic penalty defeat by unfancied Switzerland.
French captain, who had saved a penalty in normal time, watched on as Kylian Mbappe’s missed spot-kick saw the European Championship favourites dumped out prematurely.
Lloris refused to blame Mbappe, who failed to scale his usual standards throughout the tournament and claimed the squad did not do enough collectively to progress.
“We win together, we lose together,” Lloris said. “We are all responsible for being eliminated at this stage of the competition. There is no pointing fingers. We had to deal with injuries, but we have no right to make excuses.
“We gave everything, we left it all out on the pitch. Penalties are a lottery. We did not have the luck. We will now need to manage the pain. At 3-1, we should have been able to close the match out.”
Raphael Varane also refused to single out Mbappe and insisted his team had chances to put the game to bed in extra time.
Speaking to TF1, the defender added: “It’s hugely disappointing. We completely messed up our first half. We reacted in the second half but then left the space and they came back.
“Penalties are a lottery. We could have scored in extra time as we had the chance to do that. It will be calm in the dressing room and we’ll focus on our next objectives.”
France had topped the ‘group of death’ which contained Germany and Portugal while Switzerland had finished third in Group A, behind Italy and Wales.
The Swiss, who had never beaten France in a competitive fixture before Monday’s victory, will now play Spain in the quarter-finals. (AFP)
