Adrien Rabiot, the France captain, criticised his side's performance following the 3-1 defeat to Italy on Thursday evening at the San Siro in Milan, in the fifth round of the group stage of the UEFA Nations League.

Rabiot felt that the French national team put in a good first half, but squandered chances it could have taken to settle the match early, before the Italian team capitalised on Les Bleus' mistakes and turned the result in their favour.

The midfielder said, in press comments after the match: "We put in a very fine first half, and we created many chances. I think we could have settled the match and killed it off."

He added: "They scored from their first shot. I know these Italians well, and if you leave them crumbs they take them. At certain moments we were pushing forward with more players than necessary, and they punished us for certain spells."

Cucurella to the German fans: the referee is the one who erred, not me!

Former Liverpool star: Alexander-Arnold should move to Bayern Munich

Rabiot drove the point home again: "We were pushing forward with more players than necessary, and Italy knew how to punish us for the slightest mistake."

Against Italy, Rabiot wore the France captain's armband for the first time in his international career, with Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé both absent through injury.

The clash took place at the San Siro, a ground the France international knows inside out. It's where he plays his home games for Milan.

Les Bleus started strongly. Michael Olise put them ahead in the tenth minute, but Francesco Pio Esposito levelled it up for Italy on 26 minutes.

Davide Frattesi then struck Italy's go-ahead goal in the 63rd minute. Pio Esposito added a third from the penalty spot in the 75th, after his brother Sebastiano Esposito had missed another penalty earlier in the half.

The result lifted the Italians to 10 points, drawing them level with France at the top of Group One and moving them ahead on the head-to-head record. For Zinedine Zidane, it was a first defeat since taking charge of France.

Italy had not beaten France on home soil since 5 May 1962, a 2-1 win in Florence.

France went ahead in that historic 1962 encounter through Jean-Claude Piumi in the 28th minute, before the Italian José Altafini responded with two goals in quick succession, in the 47th and 51st minutes, to hand the hosts the victory.

Since then, the two sides met several times on Italian soil without the Azzurri repeating the feat. That hoodoo finally broke on Thursday evening, after 64 years.

On their last visit to the San Siro in November 2024, France had won 3-1, also in the UEFA Nations League.