Saviola’s Goal for Argentina (Sigh)

That is a pretty little treat isn’t it?

Laurie, yeah the Goal was pretty nice. I really was scared the whole second half watching the game, because i thought france was gonna score.

You guys played well. You only lacked a little bit of that Zidan magic. there was no bridge between the midfielders and the strikers. Henry and Trez could get nothing going, because you didnt have anyone distrubuting the ball from the mid forward. You guys did too many long balls, and Argentina was very stubborn defensively. You guys were beautiful to watch.

Keep up the good work.

“there was no bridge between the midfielders and the strikers.”

Yeah, that was it exactly. And I just don’t know what or who we have who’s going to fix that!!!

looks like Coupet has a little Bartez in him…scary.

Yeah, I really thought we’d picked a keeper with opposable thumbs this time.

(I shouldn’t say that. I still love Coupet.)

You know who I DON’T love, though? Gabriel Heinze. That guy TRULY bugs me. After watching this game, I’m beyond thrilled that Patrice Evra took his starting position at ManU.

lol, why dont you like heinze? he is a monster.

The truth is heinze is one of those players you will only like if he is on your team.

People in ManU adore him. He was voted manchester player of the year last year.

I know it is hard to like him if he isnt on your team. He is a tough nose, no non sense defender.

Hasn’t Ribery done a decent job of bridging that gap? I didn’t catch this game, but I’ve been continually impressed by his level of play and his tenacity.

It was funny about Ribery. My feeling was he didn’t play poorly,(keeping in mind here that these are Irish pub memories you’re getting) yet he somehow didn’t manage to get the ball from where it was to where it needed to be.

Interestingly, I’m seeing NO consensus in the French press about who the problems were. (Other than a lot of people scapegoating Trezeguet. But even there it’s not unanimous.)

Now I have a stupid Ribery question for anyone else who saw the game. Did he play the second half on the left after they subbed in Govou for Malouda? (Yes, this is the kind of detail that tends to get lost in a pub. Sorry!!)

ribery played well

but i think he is expected to continue on as the menacing attacking mid

the guy who scores alot and might be seen as an attacker

but now with no zidane he has to turn into play maker guy and concentrate on getting the passes in

That may be it, Fab. Ribery may be the next Zidane, but at the moment he can’t seem to wear all of Zidane’s hats, and he sometimes has a hard time figuring out which one to wear at any given time.

He’s only 23. Hopefully that will come with age and experience.

I think you’re being too hard on France. This was a fantastic match, and it reminded me all over again why I love this sport. It was wonderful to watch two attacking teams with skill, technique, flair – and who play open football. France came close to scoring but their imprecision failed them. Ribery was fantastic. France has an excellent squad and frankly they’re the best national team in Europe. I happen to love both France & Argentina so I had the luxury of just sitting back and enjoying two teams who can actually PLAY football. It was a pleasure to watch after the miserably one-sided Spain-England match. With one of the sport’s worst national coaches, Spain outmatched a pathetic England whose players have no clue as to how to PLAY real football. But then I forget that England’s national coach is even worse.

France definitely has stuff to work on of course (and remember that Argentina played quite poorlay against an unimpressive Brazil late last year). I wish Domenech would get rid of his idiotic astrology crap for choosing players. There are brilliant players he just ignores for the squad: Giuly and Clichy are two of them. They belong on the national team, there’s no excuse for keeping them out.

And as much as I love Henry, I agree with Laurie that Domenech utterly failed in trying an Anelka-Trezeguet pair up front.

Sandra, I agree with you completely that they played well. I was proud of ‘em, (especially the new defenders.) That’s what makes it so frustrating. It seems like recently we’ve seen them dominate play but not be able to put it in the net.

And I probably was too hard on Ribery. He did play well. (Although did something seem off with his corner kicks? They were all over the place. Or…uh…maybe that was me.):-)

“That’s what makes it so frustrating. It seems like recently we’ve seen them dominate play but not be able to put it in the net. ”

Yes but that’s only been two matches so far where that’s happened: Scotland and Argentina (a friendly). If they do the same thing against Lithuania, then I’ll start worrying. Remember that they were victorious against Italy and Georgia, they’ve proved they can do it. And 1 or 2 of Ribery’s corner kicks were questionable, it wasn’t just you.

Oh, btw Sandra, I do agree with you about astrology and Clichy and maybe a few others. However with Giuly I believe that there are other factors at work. If you speek French, go to Google.fr and google the words, “Domenech Estelle Denis Giuly” and you’ll see some interesting (yet, of course, totally unsubstantiated but still entertaining) rumors.

Hey Laurie, I know that nasty little mixbeat site (I went there a few times to educate myself on the zizou rumours months ago) — hadn’t heard about the stuff with Giuly-Domenech-Denis, tho. Sort of reminds me of why zizou was always arguing with Inzaghi on the pitch while at Juve…

Whatever the reason, tho, it’s too bad — Giuly is an unsung hero at Barca, he’s just brilliant. He belongs on the national squad.

“Sort of reminds me of why zizou was always arguing with Inzaghi on the pitch while at Juve…”

Oh, you can’t leave me with something this tantalizing and not fill in the details! This is apparently something I had missed… (How did THAT happen?)

oh dear, I thought this was well known…it’s very well known in italy, esp. Turin, and esp. among juve fans. Sorry to have added this low-rent stuff to your blog.

When the whole Materazzi-sledging thing happened last summer at the wc final, it was common to see jokes on various italy/juve boards referring to this famous piece of gossip re Veronique Zidane and Inzaghi…those old jokes still go around, about zizou’s 2nd son looking too much like Inzaghi, etc. Veteran Juve fans joked that Marco used one of those old jokes to piss zizou off. And I’ve seen enuf Juve matches to remember zizou openly yelling at Inzaghi after all that stuff came out in the Italian tabloids. I have several on dvd.

I’m not surprised that didn’t get much play in the French press. At least not the sources I read. Zizou and Veronique are venerated in France, but not Italy. So obviously this would get a lot more play in Italy than France.

You have to wonder where these things come from.

(Oh, and don’t worry about the low rent stuff. I think the secret to a fun blog is a combo of serious soccer and total trash.)

To be honest laurie, I have no idea what’s true and what’s not with these items of gossip. Better to just laugh at it and not deify or demonize ANY player (tho in my case, I still have to work on not demonizing Materazzicrapface).

Okay, I’m up to speed on the rumor mill now.

(And is it just me, or does everybody tend to give more credibility to rumors that talk about high-tech “proof” like text messages?)