There was some talk after the Tunisia game about Gourcuff’s attempts — not always successful — to utilize Zidane-like footwork so he could really claim the role of “New Zidane” for himself.
Perhaps practice makes perfect? Because on Saturday against Toulouse he made it work. Said Yoann:
“When the ball arrived at my [...]

If past performance is an indicator of future results, then the decision by the French Football Federation (FFF) to keep Raymond Domenech as the manager of France’s National Football team is cause for concern.

Group 7
Played
Points

Serbia
4
9

Lithuania
4
9

Austria
4
4

France
3
4

Romania
3
4

Faroe Islands
4
1

Domenech is getting some things right, such as playing Henry, Gourcuff, and Ribery as attackers, and featuring Toulalan in midfield; [...]

First goal. Is it possible for a defender to screw up any worse than this? I don’t think so. And why the heck didn’t Mandanda stop it? (My co-blogger Chris and I were discussing the team the other day, and I said that we needed to replace the central defenders [...]

I almost missed this game! In my mind it was tomorrow with the WC qualifiers. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Jean Pierre for leaving the comment about the “game tonight.” As it was, I only missed 25 mintues.
Good stream is here. In Arabic. http://iraqgoals.com/en/ch2.html Or it was [...]

A central defense of Eric Abidal and Jean-Alain Boumsong: what could go wrong?
The opening goal that France conceded to Romania was a disaster. France looked like trainees who had no idea what they were doing. They just watched while Romania scored.
The second Romania goal was a header from a corner, and France were [...]

It it game day. What does this mean? It means leave streams and thoughts in the comments.
Game starts at 20h40 according to l’Equipe, so I’m assuming that’s France time. This would be 11:40 Pacific and 2:40 Eastern.
Probable starting lineup is:
L’équipe probable : Mandanda – Sagna, Boumsong, Abidal, Evra [...]

All righty, a few changes since the last post. (Thanks to everybody who’s been keeping our readers up to date in the comments!)
First, Lasssana Diarra is forfait with a left knee inflammation. He hasn’t yet been replaced. There was talk about bringing in Mathieu Flamini, but Flamini himself is not [...]

Raymond Domenech unveiled the list today for the WC qualifier vs. Romania and the friendly against Tunisia.
Biggest surprise for me? No Samir Nasri. Raymond’s reason? “Samir is back playing but he is still not fully fit.” And of course it has nothing to do with the fact that Yoann [...]

As has been mentioned in the comments, there has been a lot of criticism in the French press lately about the way the FFF and Domenech are running things, most of it coming from former French players. The biggest surprise? Zinedine Zidane, on Canal+. (I’ve looked for videos with no luck. [...]