Turkey/France – Dembélé's strong words after the win

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·26 September 2026

Turkey/France – Dembélé's strong words after the win

Ousmane Dembélé, the 29-year-old forward for Paris Saint-Germain and the France national team, spoke to TF1 after Friday night’s 0-1 win over Turkey in the Nations League.

Dembélé: “We knew it wouldn’t be easy.”

“We were hoping for a win, of course, especially on a difficult pitch, but I think we played a very good match overall. We could even have scored one or two more goals. Coming here to Turkey, into a passionate stadium, we knew it wouldn’t be easy. All week, we prepared very well for this match. The coach (Zinédine Zidane, in his first game in charge of Les Bleus) wanted us to play, with a lot of communication on the pitch. He gave us a tactic, a 4-3-3, to put in place against Turkey. Overall, we played a very good match, and we were solid too.

Dembélé: “That’s nothing new.”

(On his position up front) I felt very good, I’ve been playing through the middle all season at PSG, so that’s nothing new.”, as reported by L’Equipe.

There was naturally a certain level of expectation, even excitement, for the start of this new chapter with head coach Zinedine Zidane, but it is important to keep things in perspective. Naturally, it takes time to put everything in place. Turkey, too, are an opponent to be taken very seriously, especially on home soil.

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France managed to win and showed some encouraging signs. They need to build on that, without getting carried away of course. Let’s allow Les Bleus to keep working, to find and fine-tune the best formula.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.