My guess for the lineup. (And yes, I’m mentally stuck in 4-4-2.)
———————————-Nicolas Anelka — Djibril Cisse———————————-
———Florent Malouda —- Claude Makelele —- Lassana Diarra— Franck Ribery—————
———–Eric Abidal––William Gallas — Lilian Thuram — Francois Clerc —-
——————————————–Gregory Coupet————————————
So no, I’m not seeing anything hugely creative, at least for this game. Maybe against Georgia. [...]

Looks like Les Bleus will reunite with an old friend for Saturday’s game with Ukraine.
Spain’s Luis Medina Cantalejo, the official who spotted Zinedine Zidane’s head-butt in last year’s World Cup final, will referee France’s Euro 2008 qualifier against Ukraine on Sunday in Paris.
Ah! The fourth official! I remember him!
He was [...]

I’ll admit to not being as familiar as I should have been with Stade Rennais striker Jimmy Briand. As penance I’m reading lots of French articles and watching Setanta archives and DailyMotion videos. And I’m now wondering why this kid was not on my radar screen before, because what I’m seeing [...]

I stumbled on an interesting Senegalese article this weekend about upcapped call-up Bakary Sagna. (Original article in French is here. Amazingly comprehensible Google-translated article is here.) The title of the article is, in part, “Domenech Ruins the Plans of Kasperczak.” (Henri Kasperczak being the coach of the Senegal National Team.) [...]

I’m in the process of writing up a post on Jimmy Briand and translating an interesting article from Senegal on Bakary Sagna. Both are taking time, though, so in the meantime I thought I’d share a fun video of Grégory Coupet that I found on the website Only Goalkeeping. (Warning, though. He [...]

I’ve been put off writing this because… Well, honestly, it’s because my heart is completely shattered. No Patrice Evra on the list. What’s up with that?
Coach Raymond Domenech apparently prefers Julien Escudé, with his ability to switch-hit between left back and central defense. Okay, yes, I adore Escudé [...]

The List will be revealed on Thursday. Who do you think will be on it? And what formation do you think they’ll play this time?
My thoughts, with players listed in no particular order, give us a field a lot like what we saw in March. And I’m kind of finding my brain [...]

Just in case you need a whole bunch of advance notice to clear your schedule, France will play a friendly on Wednesday, August 20 in Sweden.
What’s that, you say? They’re playing against Slovakia on Wednesday August 22?
Oh, right. I’m talking about 2008.
Last time the two teams met was [...]

David Trézéguet hasn’t had a whole lot to smile about in the past year, but this weekend was an exception. (Click on the photo for a larger version.) He scored one of the five goals that clinched a win for Juventus and guaranteed that they will be promoted back to Serie A [...]

It’s transfer time again, and the transfer rumor mill is buzzing. A number of our French guys are in demand, largely because of their performances in last year’s World Cup. So who’s going to be switching uniforms next year?
First a quick look at a couple of Olympique Lyonnais players. (For more [...]