Tokyo Olympics: Ripoll calls for France response after Mexico misery

France head coach Sylvain Ripoll has called on his players to “digest” their 4-1 thumping by Mexico and promptly step up their game at Tokyo 2020.

Les Bleus went into the Olympic tournament rated as being among the leading medal contenders along with Brazil and Spain.

But they suffered a miserable defeat to Mexico on Thursday and are now under pressure in Group A with just three days until their next match against South Africa.

The match was goalless at half-time, with five goals scored in an extraordinary second period.

But France only accounted for one of those strikes, a penalty from captain Andre-Pierre Gignac.

“The first thing we are going to do is digest what happened,” said Ripoll. “We only have a couple of days between matches so it’s not very much time. 

“Of course we knew this would be difficult but we know we can do better. There’s not a lot of time [between matches] so each player will have to focus on themselves individually.

“We play as a team but everybody needs to step up their game so we can get a better result in the game against South Africa.”

— (@miseleccionmx) July 22, 2021

Ripoll felt France’s struggles to keep the ball were key to their defeat, but does now feel Mexico will be looked at in a different light.

“We are disappointed, not just with the result but with the content of the match,” he added.

“We should have had a better balance, we needed to be better, but now we can really understand the quality of the Mexico team, which is a really high-quality team.

“There’s more that we should have done. It’s important to understand that we need to improve our game going forward. 

“In football it’s all about having the ball and we struggled with that.”

Hosts Japan, who beat South Africa 1-0 in their opener, are the other team in Group A.