Assistant reveals tribute to Deschamps and analyzes France's World Cup victory

France's players wanted to do something special to show support for coach Didier Deschamps after the death of his mother, and they did so with a resounding 4-1 victory over Norway this Friday (26), said assistant coach Guy Stephan.

"Obviously all my thoughts are with Didier. I'll call him later. We're all happy for him to be back in the team soon. Tomorrow afternoon he'll be in training," Stephan told reporters.

With Deschamps in France for his mother's funeral, the French team won comfortably thanks to a hat-trick from Ousmane Dembélé in the first half and a header from Désiré Doué in stoppage time.

Both teams were already qualified for the round of 16 stage of the tournament, but the French were determined to finish at the top of the group to avoid a more exhausting travel schedule in the following stages.

"All the players did what they needed to do," said Stephan. "As they are very close to Didier, they wanted to do something special today on the pitch."

Stephan - hired by Deschamps as his assistant at Olympique de Marseille in 2009, and who accompanied him to the French national team three years later - said he identified some points of concern in the team's performance against a Norway that entered the field without almost all of its usual starters, spared by coach Ståle Solbakken for the round of 16 phase of the World Cup.

"What pleased me a little less, if we want to be perfectionists, was that, at some moments, the game became easy and then we stopped running so much, allowing the opponent to create some opportunities", he said.

"This is an aspect that we need to correct, because the opponents will be increasingly stronger. I'm not saying that Norway isn't a quality team, but today they didn't play with their main formation", he concluded.

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Source: CNN