France’s Patrice Evra is keeping his thoughts about the alleged extortion case between Karim Benzema and Mathieu Valbuena to himself. “All I’ll say is that we’ve shot ourselves in the foot twice. Both parties will remain my friends forever”, the Juventus defender asserted.

Evra also eluded to the Real Madrid striker’s frame of mind, attributing his upsurge in form to the fact that the football pitch is acting like a refuge for him at the moment.

“The football pitch is your oxygen tank and it’s where you are set free. Everybody has their problems, but once you walk out onto the pitch, it is the love of football [that takes over]”, the former Manchester United man told French station RTL.

The veteran international refused to give his opinion about the blackmail case.

Every time Didier [Deschamps] sees us he tells us there are to be no more stories [or scandals] before the Euros. Now we have to leave things alone so we can focus on what happens on the pitch, on working, on winning games”, the 34-year-old concluded.