Schneiderlin welcomes World Cup pressure

France midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin has no doubt his team can deal with the increasing pressure in the FIFA World Cup knockout stages.

Didier Deschamps’ side have impressed in Brazil and face Nigeria in a round-of-16 clash in Brasilia on Monday.

Schneiderlin, 24, urged his team to stay in their “bubble” and be ready for what is sure to be growing pressure the longer they stay alive.

“We’ll deal with the pressure step by step,” the Southampton midfielder told a media conference.

“It’s normal, because the closer you are to the final, the more pressure there is. We need to stay in our bubble now, we need to play each game like it’s a final, and win it.

“Every team in the knockout phase wants to play the final and win the World Cup so we’ll keep the spirit and play our game.”

Schneiderlin said France would practice penalties at training, with shootouts potentially required in the knockout stages.

He spoke of the importance of being ready for penalties but wants his team to avoid shootouts if possible.

“Until now, we did not really train, just a quick run, so I can’t tell you if we’ll train penalties or not,” Schneiderlin.

“We’ll try to avoid them because it’s like Russian roulette, it’s 50-50 during a penalty shootout, so we’ll try to end the game before them.

“If we have to do it, we have got players able to shoot. We’ll see if we practice penalties at the end of the training, I think we’ll take a couple of minutes to do it. We have to be ready for everything.”