The 27-year-old captain lamented his side's lacklustre performance in Tuesday's (14.07.26) World Cup semi-final and admitted the squad were left hugely disappointed by their own performance and the resulting 2-0 defeat.

He told French broadcaster M6: “I don’t think we played the match we wanted to play, whether tactically, technically, or in terms of our overall performance level.

“When you don’t do what you’re supposed to do in a World Cup semi-final, you don’t win. Our goal was to press them high up the pitch to prevent them from settling into that slow, controlled rhythm, because when it comes to controlling the game they are better than us. We failed to do that."

Of the third-place play-off game, he added: "It’s is something we have to face with our heads held high But right now there is immense disappointment. I find it hard to put into words just how disappointed the squad and I are. Football waits for no one. We have to start over, put this failure behind us, and learn from it.”

The forward admitted France had been outnumbered in midfield.

He said: "Against Spain that’s a real problem. When you put it all together, the result is a defeat. It’s a huge disappointment.”

Manager Didier Deschamps praised his players' "ambition" but admitted they hadn't played their best.

He said: “We are disappointed of course, the players are deflated. The ambition was there, we are not lacking ambition. We are a group of competitors and there are some things we didn’t do well.

“I don’t want to take away from or throw away everything they’ve done so far. We should have been more dangerous on the pitch and made the game more difficult for Spain.

"We should have been 100% at our technical level as well as our physical level. We were not at 100% today unfortunately.”