And Domenech Calls Up…You’ll Never Guess

November 18th, 2008 | by: Laurie |

I don’t know why I’m surprised by these Raymond Domenech decisions anymore.

Actually, come to think of it, I’m not surprised by these Raymond Domenech decisions anymore.

Raymond lost a DM, a center/leftback, and a rightback this week to injury — Lassana Diarra, Julien Escudé and Bakary Sagna.

So who does he call up? You’ll never guess.

Jean-Alain Boumsong, of course. My other guess would have been Sidney Govou. They seem to share the role of “Domenech’s binky,” as one of you so aptly described it earlier this year. (When things were bad a few months back, did anybody else get visions of Raymond curled up in a corner, sucking his thumb while snuggling Sid and Boum-Boum?)

Now the big question: Who starts in defense tomorrow? L’Equipe is saying Rod Fanni on the right, William Gallas and Philippe Mexès in the center, and Patrice Evra on the left. With Hugo Lloris starting in goal! (Yea, Raymond, for taking a chance for once!) And, shock of shocks, Nicolas Anelka alone up top.

Expected starting lineup: Lloris – Fanni, Mexès, Gallas, Evra – Vieira, Toulalan – Ribéry, Gourcuff, Henry – Anelka.

Also, Franck Ribéry took a knock to the knee and left the field with an icepack today after colliding with Steve Mandanda. Cross fingers that it’s nothing — we just got the guy back!

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Pierre

Well if u look at Govou’s record for France he has actually played very well and Anelka has really been on form for Chelsea so it seems like a good team i don’t know but i think that he might have selected a pretty good French team hey im just a bit worried abut Fanni im not sure if he is ready yet. And do ya have the bench line up i expect Nasri and Benzema will be there but i dont understand why Ben Arfa isnt in the team though?
Jamie

My only requirements of Domenech is to tell people like Vieira to go away once and for all! He was good before, but how does this help for 2010? Probably D knows he will be sacked before and doesn’t care…maybe he’s good friends with these bad players? How much do off-the-pitch relations count in matters such as this?

Anyway..after that, he can just let them play, that’s all he’s gotta do. Let the new, young, eager players work out how to play together. And then, hopefully, the rest will go down as history.
sandrahn

Boumsong? *sigh*

He did perform pretty solidly over the weekend, tho.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

Yeah, he really didn’t look too bad against Bordeaux. He has the skills of a perfectly serviceable centerback, most of the time.

The thing is, can anybody say with a straight face that Boumsong is the future of the team?

I thought not.
Aditya

This friendly is totally useless. There is no other international match for a few months now. England and Germany have called up lot of young faces and how many have France called?

Where’s Ben-Arfa, Clichy, perhaps even Menez?

And boy is France short of young central defenders? I cannot think of any potential upcoming center backs apart from Sakho.
Pierre

I realy wanna see Savidan play 2night and with a central defender im hoping Habib Bellaïd and Younes Kaboul will step up to our future defence!
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sandrahn

Aditya, England have called up a lot of your internationals (a couple of them for their first caps) because the older guys are all injured. He had no choice. Fabio called up Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Terry, all the usual suspects. Nearly all of them are injured, including Walcott. There’s been a whole country v. club row over in England because of it.
Jean Pierre

boumsong aagh
there should be nasri&benzema too
Aditya

Sandrahn, I know what England did and why. But I think RD should have included a few upcoming faces who have been doing good. Notably Ben-Arfa. What did he do wrong apart from being a prat in the PSG match?