I have no idea what the story here is. All I know is that this is Raymond Domenech’s significant other, Estelle Denis, the mother of his two most recent children. And the picture she’s holding is a nude photo of France/Marseille striker Djibril Cisse.
Larger version here, but I wouldn’t recommend clicking [...]

Hello everyone! I’ll be helping out Laurie and Jeff to keep you all updated as Euro 2008 approaches (we’re going to win, duh). As some of you know, I am fascinated by Raymond Domenech. He’s exasperating, makes strange decisions, and is on the verge of starting a cold war with Italy. He’d certainly make a [...]

Woman: Would it be too much to ask to talk about something other than football for 45 minutes?
Man: An entire half?
In my family, the roles are reversed. I’m the person on the right.
But my husband is not the person on the left. And we are both glad about this.

No time for a real post today, but I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t point you to some posts you might be interested in.
First, we’re starting Euro coverage over at the Euro ‘08 page of World Cup Blog. I did a quick Thierry Henry profile that included an excellent video from [...]

I am back in the States at last. My trip was fantastic. Huge thanks to Jeff for his coverage while I was gone!
As I was surfing the web this morning, my first morning back, I realized something: I have gone far too long without giving you a photo of a French player [...]

“You always lose when your opponents score and you don’t.”
–France coach Raymond Domenech
Oh, great, Raymond. Tell the boys AFTER the game.
P.S. The photo is of Raymond signing autographs. Why does this amuse me so?
(Quote found on FootiedB.com.)

The fact that these photos keep finding me?
SO not my fault.
But once they find me, I might as well share, right?

I was googling something completely different when I stumbled on this list of French soccer vocabulary. For some reason it made me smile. Even with this depressing introductory paragraph:
On Sunday, 9 July, France lost to Italy in the 2006 World Cup Final. Here is a list of French vocabulary related to soccer and [...]

So when does it mean when people halfway across the world see photos like this and immediately think of me?
What does it mean? I’ll tell you what it means.
It means: DAMN, I love this gig.
(Wait. Did I just say that?)
(Thanks, Massaer!)

I love it when the name “Lizarazu” pops up in my inbox. I know it’s going to be something fun. He’s not playing any more, so it won’t be an injury list, or a game recap, or anything normal and boring like that. Instead I get news like the “attempting to make [...]