Bompastor urges France to plug leaks

France defender Sonia Bompastor was relieved to have reached the quarter-finals of UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2009™ but said her side need to kick their habit of conceding early goals at the tournament.

Early strikes
France's 1-1 draw with Norway at Helsinki Football Stadium was enough to put a smile on the face of coach Bruno Bini and book a last-eight meeting with the Netherlands in Tampere on Thursday. If the good news was the result, though, the bad news was that Bini's side have developed a worrying tendency to go a goal down before the game is even ten minutes old at these finals. Norway’s Lene Storløkken struck after four minutes, Inka Grings after nine in their 5-1 defeat by Germany and Hólmfrídur Magnúsdóttir after only six in a 3-1 victory over Iceland.

Bad habit
"Unfortunately, we’ve got into a bad habit – conceding early goals," Bompastor said. "I think it's down to a lack of concentration. It's not something we can afford to let happen in every single game because each time we concede an early goal, we have got to respond to it. Today, we still had the resources to do that, but that might not be the case in the near future. We'll have to try and sort this out."

Long wait
Despite the rocky road, France have at last emerged from the group stage of a UEFA European Women's Championship, a first for Les Bleues since the group format was introduced in 1997. "We've finally qualified for the quarter-finals, I've been waiting for this for a long time and so have some of my team-mates," said the 29-year-old, who made her international debut in 2000 and plays her club football in the United States for Washington Freedom. "Perhaps we've been fortunate that there are now three groups instead of two, when it was more difficult to qualify. But the important thing tonight is that we're second in the group. That's really good."

Semi-final chance
Bompastor was equally upbeat about France's chances of making it through to the semi-finals, despite their most recent contest against the Dutch ending in a 2-0 home defeat at Compiegne in December. "I think it's a team we can beat, and that the coaching staff will give us everything we need to have a good game – and to win it."