A few injury and illness updates that affect our France players.
First, Samir Nasri has recovered from his meningitis-type illness enough to give interviews, and he is less than happy with l’OM’s current domestic performance. I take this as a positive sign that he has survived the illness with his brain and mental [...]

Here’s a good video of the goals from yesterday’s game. My favorite is the second Karim Benzema goal, which I think was the fifth goal overall. I love how Thierry Henry is in the process of falling but still manages to get Karim the ball. But all the goals are beautiful. [...]

I overslept this morning and tuned into the game in the fourteenth minute and discovered I’d missed the first two goals. (Nicolas Anelka and Thierry Henry.) And then pretty much nothing happened for the rest of the first half. Hate when that happens.
Les Bleus scored those two right off the bat, then they [...]

Latest news from l’Equipe is that the game is expected to be played as scheduled on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. France time. (Which, if I’m adding this up right will have me dragging myself out of bed at 8:00 a.m.)
“From our point of view, we are preparing to play tomorrow (Saturday),” said [...]

It’s kind of hard to play a football game when one of the teams is stuck in another country. That may be the case tomorrow, when France is scheduled to play in the Faroe Islands.
According to l’Equipe, the France team was unexpectedly required to spend the night in Bergen, Norway, when their [...]

“Show of hands! Who thinks Trezeguet should just shut up?”
I could go back and get all the links to the latest Trezeguet “I deserve this more than those Ligue 1 losers and if I don’t get it I’ll quit!” tantrum, or I could just leave you with this photo.
I’m feeling lazy.

This list of “possible” starters is all I’m finding in l’Equipe so far, but I think I like it:
L’équipe possible : Landreau – Sagna, Thuram, Mexès (ou Abidal), Abidal (ou Evra) – Makelele, Toulalan, Ribéry, Rothen – Benzema, Henry.
This game against the 0-point Faroes is definitely the time to test out new things, [...]

I’m out of town for the week, but before I go I wanted to leave you with a couple of good (and English-language) articles about French players.
The first is the Ribery interview from Sports Illustrated — a good read.
And the second is another Anelka interview where he confirms that he’d love to be playing [...]

After seeing the difficulty the current favored ones are having with crosses, I’m wondering what everybody thinks of the idea of playing Jérôme Rothen.
Of course, if France were to play him, they’d then need a poacher like David Trezeguet to finish things off. Sigh.
Inara at the OL blog has more on Trezeguet’s [...]

I know there’s a lot of actual France-related football news I should write on instead of fluff, but I couldn’t pass this one up. Here’s a sweet story about Nicolas Anelka and other Bolton players taking the time to speak in their native language to schoolchildren.
“Striker Anelka said: “It’s good for [...]