Everyone knows how poor the French were in South Africa. They approached the tournament in poor form including a 1-0 defeat against China. Results like this lead to low expectations from fans and pundits alike but how did they return home embarrassed despite such relatively low expectations?
- Had the players lost interest in representing their country?
- Was the class divide too much for team morale?
- Did Domenech’s decision making and poor man management skills become too much of a problem?
There has been alot of finger pointing during and after the tournament resulting in a few lengthy bans, a few swift retirements and a few red faces.
New management has arrived in the shape of Laurent Blanc who has bravely started with a completely different squad to the one that failed in South Africa. Unfortunately for Les Bleus results haven’t changed as the latest squad recently lost 2-1 away to a resurgent Norwegian team.
The question is that around 5o players have been called up to the French squad over the last few months. With a tricky European qualifying campaign coming up who would you pick and in what position? The players picked in the last two squads were as follows:
Goalkeepers:
Cédric Carrasso, Hugo Lloris, Mickaël Landreau, Nicolas Douchez, Stéphane Ruffier, Steve Mandanda.
Defenders:
Adil Rami, Aly Cissokho, Anthony Réveillère, Bacary Sagna, Benoît Trémoulinas, Éric Abidal, Gaël Clichy, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Julien Escudé, Mamadou Sakho, Marc Planus, Mathieu Debuchy, Michaël Ciani, Patrice Evra, Philippe Mexès, Rod Fanni, Sébastien Squillaci, William Gallas.
Midfielders:
Abou Diaby, Alou Diarra, Benoît Cheyrou, Blaise Matuidi, Charles N’Zogbia, Florent Malouda, Franck Ribéry, Jérémy Toulalan, Lassana Diarra, Mathieu Valbuena, Moussa Sissoko, Samir Nasri, Yann M’Vila, Yoann Gourcuff, Yohan Cabaye.
Forwards:
André-Pierre Gignac, Bafétimbi Gomis, Djibril Cissé, Guillaume Hoarau, Hatem Ben Arfa, Jérémy Menez, Jimmy Briand, Karim Benzema, Loïc Rémy, Louis Saha, Sidney Govou.
The team that I would like to see against Belarus is below:
How would your team differ?
* If you are interested in creating a team like above check out the excellent resource http://this11.com/
Any chance of Koscielny coming in? I know it’s early, but he’s been impressive for Arsenal so far, and I don’t think Gallas is quite fit enought
Great shout! Forgot about him, looked excellent against Liverpool and was unlucky to get sent off considering that Ngog got away with a handball earlier in the 2nd half.
Ngog is probably another I could add, although it might be a bit early for him…
I’ve kept Toulalan in the squad as he’s a player that I think is very good at keeping possession. He’s a player that in England often gets moaned about “For doing nothing”
Like Denilson, and to a lesser extent, Mascherano? (I saw someone on a Liverpool blog on GU moaning about Mascherano. Was very surprised)
It always surprises me that fans get annoyed at the likes of Denilson, Lucas and Mikel. They are asked by their managers to fulfil a role. If they suddenly started attacking like Fabregas, Gerrard and Lampard the team wouldn’t work. How isn’t this understood?
The fan who is complaining about Mascherano is either bitter or retarded. Being a Liverpool fan it’s probably both…
Who would you have in your first 11?
If I were French, that defence would make me want to cry: even though they’re all talented players (albeit some with the mentality of twelve-year-olds) it’s such a massive decline from the all-time-great back-four of Lizarazu, Blanc, Desailly, Thuram which won the 98 World Cup for France.
As for your team, injuries, form and attitude permitting, I think you’ve just about got it right: Mexes needs to show he can get back his first-team place at Roma, while I wouldn’t pick Gallas as he’s likely to be too old in two years time, so there’s massive question marks over central defence in particular, since I can’t really say I’m entirely convinced about the potential of the other candidates to make the final step (although Koscielny clearly has talent).
By the way, I didn’t watch the game with Norway, so can’t really comment, but suffice to say it must have been another miserably sub-standard performance from the French.
It is a pretty desperate situation, I’m not even sure that Gallas would of got much of a look in if he was at his peak in 1998. I chose Mexes but was also tempted by Escude or Squillaci (will be interesting to see how he does in the premiership.
It looks like Mexes will be getting games this season unless Roma manage to buy Burdisso from Inter. As an aside I really like the balance of the Roma squad for this season. Fabio Simplicio and David Pizarro could work really well.
Disapointing to see Rosenborg get knocked out last night
Squillaci is a tidy defender, but at 30 and with a lengthy history of injury he’s hardly one for the future. Based on the squad named below one must assume Mexes and Rami are the new first-choice pairing?
Was disappointed for Rosenborg, but not too surprised: as soon as they conceded in the first leg the writing was on the wall.
Will be interesting to see whether Anthony Annan leaves now he won’t get to play in the CL. He was linked with a move to Genoa earlier in the summer, but they have since brought in both Miguel Veloso of Sporting and Hoffenheim’s Franco Zuculini for that position, so I guess there’s no room for him now.
The squad looks very light on defensive cover. Would be interesting to see whether Sahko gets a game as I’ve heard he’s meant to be an up&coming talent.
With Evra/Clichy/Cissokho, France have the most in depth supply of left backs in world football. Shame the rest of the defence isn’t so strong.
I’m sure that Annan could play alongside Veloso similarly as Mendes did last season(I know that they are different types of players but positionally they are similar?) Genoa are definately one to watch this year!
Just in…
France coach Laurent Blanc on Thursday named the following 21-man squad for Euro 2012 qualifiers against Belarus on Sept. 3 in Paris and Bosnia on Sept. 7 in Sarajevo.
Goalkeepers:
Cedric Carrasso (Girondins Bordeaux), Hugo Lloris (Olympique Lyon), Steve Mandanda (Olympique Marseille).
Defenders:
Gael Clichy (Arsenal), Philippe Mexes (AS Roma), Adil Rami (Lille), Mamadou Sakho (Paris St Germain), Bacary Sagna (Arsenal), Benoit Tremoulinas (Girondins Bordeaux).
Midfielders:
Abou Diaby (Arsenal), Alou Diarra (Girondins Bordeaux), Lassana Diarra (Real Madrid), Yann M’Vila (Stade Rennes), Florent Malouda (Chelsea), Jeremy Menez (AS Roma), Mathieu Valbuena (Olympique Marseille).
Forwards:
Karim Benzema (Real Madrid), Kevin Gameiro (Lorient), Guillaume Hoarau (Paris St Germain), Loic Remy (Olympique Marseille), Louis Saha (Everton).
Can’t believe that I left out one of the most in form players in Europe – Florent Malouda would currently get in ahead of Ribery…
So Sakho will start with Mexes?
Mole seems to think Rami will start but I don’t really know many of the French defenders. The midfield is quite funny (and probably not to indifferent to many teams nowadays.) as there are either holding midfielders or attacking midfielders. The days of the jack of all trades midfielder has appeared to of finished.
I didn’t count Diaby as he’s awful
I assumed Rami because I don’t know much about Sakho: is he related to former Nimes, Lens, Marseille, Leeds, Saint Etienne, Montpellier, Larnaca, Wrexham and Senegal striker Lamine Sakho?
Btw I’ve just submitted my Norwegian talent guide for publication:)
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0-1 at home to Belarus? Looks like Le President’s revolution is still struggling for life…
Desperate wasn’t it…
Next game away in Bosnia