Didier Deschamps reflect on the round of 16 game that saw France produce two quick-fire second half goals to eliminate Republic of Ireland from the tournament on Sunday (26th June).

SOUNDBITE: (French) Didier Deschamps, France head coach

(Q: Another difficult start with conceding the early penalty but has this victory maybe freed you up in the competition?)

"I hope so. I knew that this match was going to be difficult and when Ireland took the lead it made us a little bit more uncomfortable in the first half. We did react well later on. There was lots of enthusiasm from them so we really had to dig deep to get through this situation to equalise and then to take the lead."

SOUNDBITE: (French) Didier Deschamps, France head coach

(Q: What were the tactical changes that you made at half-time?):

"It's simple. It was in order to get more presence up front. Ireland were quite deep so we wanted to get (Antoine) Griezmann closer to (Olivier) Giroud and we wanted to bring in some speed with Kingsley Coman going wide in order to try and create some space and to use the width a bit better. But it was above all to get some more presence up front because the four attacking players, with Dimitri (Payet), Antoine (Griezmann) Kingsley and Giroud, that created a lot of pressure up front and we created some chances."