GNIEWINO: France attacking midfielder Samir Nasri (pic) brushed aside suggestions that champions Spain are favorites for Euro 2012, saying he would rather play against Vicente del Bosque's team than Italy in the quarter-finals.

The two will fight it out for a place in the last four on Saturday.

“I don't think Spain are favorites for the tournament, the Germans have impressed me the most," said Nasri. "Spain and Italy are both hard to play against and, in my opinion, the Italians are harder to play against as they line up with five defenders and three defensive midfielders who push up.

“Spain likes to play football, but France have always done well against the Spaniards in a major tournament. We might get more room against them."

Nasri also commented on France’s 23-match unbeaten run that came to an end against Sweden in their final Group D match, insisting it was better to lose the sequence when three points were not essential rather than against the likes of Spain.

"The unbeaten run was anecdotal, it had to end sometime. You can't stay unbeaten forever, and it's better that it happened in a match where we qualified anyway," said the Manchester City star.

“Now we have to go back to work and prepare for Spain. The objective was to reach the quarter-finals.

“If people had said two years ago we would be in the quarter-finals of the European Championship, we would have signed up for that right away. So we can't complain."

However, another midfielder Yohan Cabaye is not quite as confident about France’s chances.

"We have three days to prepare now for our next game and we have made it harder for us. It is going to be difficult," he said.

“We have to be better but the most important thing is we have to have a better mentality. I hope we learn, we do the right things from now on and we play like a team.

“We've always played like a team, not like Tuesday when we lost to Sweden. Spain are the best team in the world so we are going to have to play like it is the final.

“If we play like we did against Sweden we haven't got any chance of beating Spain. We know this," said the Newcastle man.


- mD