We all know what happened in 2002 when France had a team full of attackers coming into the World Cup in blazing form. They had burned too brightly, and they had burned out. Zizou limped out of training injured, and the side imploded, unceremoniously.
Henry, a red-card villain of 2002, is coming in on [...]

If Franck Ribery can reproduce a bit of this Bayern Munich form for France this summer, the Champagne will be flowing.

The Spanish commentary to the first Ribery goal: “Por favor.” Please.
Here’s a link that might work better (that Daily Motion link kept freezing on me) with all 4 of Bayern’s goals from the game.

Here, [...]

People following football blogs aren’t the sort to let the questionable naming of major competitions be an obstacle to their enjoyment, but it just might help increase interest among Americans if the European Club Cub wasn’t oddly named the Champions League, and if the Euros had a name a bit closer to the “World Cup.” [...]

Julien Pretot wrote a piece yesterday for Reuters about the game. Trezeguet appreciated the applause from the crowd, but Domenech doesn’t pay attention to the crowd.
Gabriele Marcotti has piece on Domenech on SI.com. Journalists sympathetic to Italy, and Gabriele is Italian, tend to strongly dislike Domenech; which is one of the [...]

France’s second-string side went up 3-0 against Mali today in Paris, and held on to win the friendly 3-2.
We had links to highlights in Daily Motion, but they quit working. Here are some pictures from the game.

Clairfontaine must look like a M*A*S*H unit with all the injuries:
1. France’s great hope, Karim Benzema, has an injured left ankle – Replaced by Trezeguet (Trezegol?)
2. Arsenal’s impeccable right back Bacary Sagna – Replaced by Reveillère
3. The World’s best player as recently as 2003, Thierry Henry – Replaced by Loic Remy
4. France Captain Patrick Vieira [...]

The name I see more than any other when I’m searching out stories about L’Equipe de France is Patrick Vignal of Reuters. He has the beat covered, and I thought it would be interesting to see if he would tell us about his work and his thoughts about Les Bleus going into Euro 2008. [...]

France winger Franck Ribery wants to play like Zidane and win the Ballon D’or. Leading France to victory this summer would go some way to helping him toward those goals. I, for one, am a big, big fan of the player. In the post-Zidane era, he has just about looked like France’s [...]

Hello Swoosh!
Hold onto your old Adidas France jersey. It’s a collector’s item now that France has signed with Nike.
Or…well, maybe not yet. But in 2011, for sure. That’s when the contract starts, and it runs through 2018. In other words, for most of the Karim Benzema/Samir Nasri/Hatem Ben Arfa years. [...]

If you’re looking for a way to watch the France-Congo game, try this Eurosport site. (Thanks, Inara!) Right now I’m getting a black screen, but with luck that will change as the game time comes along. One source says 17h00, the other says 18h00, so your guess is as good as mine. [...]