Former French soccer captain Didier Deschamps has said criticism of the team should be restrained following their shock first-round exit from the World Cup.
"We have to be able to take a step back and try to
analyse without burning everything," Deschamps told French radio.
"In the past, the compliments maybe were a bit exaggerated. Now we have to be a bit more moderate," said Deschamps, the hard-tackling captain who led France to World Cup glory in 1998.
Deschamps said the defeat was due to a lack of physical
freshness in the team.
"We were World and European champions through talent and technical quality but also, particularly, because we had
100% of our strength," he said.
French captain Marcel Desailly said he felt expectations of the French side had perhaps been too high.
"It's a big disappointment, a catastrophe, but at the same time we mustn't go over the top," he said.
"The machine has ground to a halt.
"All of us, journalists and supporters, were perhaps expecting too much, we wanted to feel the emotions of 1998, we thought we were already in the last 16, in the quarter-finals, in the semi-finals.
"We didn't manage to play and I think a few little things need changing."
The Chelsea defender concluded that his team were happier playing on home soil, where they won their crown in 1998.
"The friendly matches we had before the World Cup perhaps misled us a little as to the true level of competition.
"And away from home, we've had problems, in Spain, in Chile or in Australia.
"Perhaps we just don't travel very well."