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. [...]

No big news in France-land that I’m seeing, aside from the fact that we apparently broke Philippe Mexès when he was on international duty.
Oops. Hate when that happens.
(Get well soon, Philou. At least for Roma’s sake.)
And on a related note, was Eric Abidal a surprise in [...]

Sensitive young souls, cover your eyes. Everybody else? Please join me in wishing a Happy (slightly belated) Birthday to Noémie Lenoir, Mrs. Claude Makélélé
Noemie was born on September 19, 1979, 29 years ago yesterday.
(More photos below the jump.)

Having a look around the French press today, these two are getting the rave reviews. Lots of headlines about Anelka changing the game when he came on and Gourcuff having a great game on his full debut.
Not as much ink for Henry and his sublime opener, but he’s had his share over the years, [...]

First thing: Raymond Domenech has kept his job. For now.
According to Christian Teinturier, the VP of the FFF who was apparently the only guy to ask for change on July 3, is saying:
We had spoken of three matches. We will make the assessment after those three matches. We are [...]