Laurent Blanc urges people to keep their expectations low ahead of Euro 2012 as he looks to rebuild the France team.
Coach fears France will not progress beyond the first round at Euros
France coach Laurent Blanc has warned people not to expect miracles in Euro 2012, believing it impossible to rebuild the team so soon after the World Cup debacle.
Les Bleus were knocked out in the first round in South Africa last year, with a squad strike overshadowing their competition after Nicolas Anelka was dismissed for insulting former manager Raymond Domenech.
Blanc's side have since qualified for the European Championship, albeit in unconvincing fashion, winning Group D with Bosnia and Herzegovina just a point behind.
Although losing just once in their last ten games, the coach remains realistic as he tries to reinstate a positive mentality into his players after the 2010 fiasco.
"In 15 months, people want us to have a great team with great players and play like the Netherlands, Spain or Germany. It is impossible," Blanc told L'Equipe.
"We said, and we say it again, that it would take time. You don't buy quality of play, or a team, in the supermarket.
The former France international insisted that he never considered excluding those players involved in the South Africa farce.
He added: "The scar will always be there. We have to live with it. They all did a stupid thing. All of them.
"We could have said: people don't want to see them. All those who were there in South Africa, it's over. They're 22, 23? We don't care. Then people would have been happy.
"The only problem is that after three games and three defeats, the same people would have been screaming: we want a France team that wins, that's all.
"So either we did that, or we did what we just did: keeping these players but trying to change their state of mind.
"Four or five years were needed for the first solution and I was not up for it."
France currently sit 12th in the Fifa world rankings, facing the possibility of being drawn from the lowest ranked teams in Pot 4 on 2nd December in Kiev.
Blanc confessed his fears of progressing in the competition, saying: "If we have Spain or Germany in our group, it will be very tough to get through the first round
"People can fantasise but I am telling you the truth."
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