Euro ‘08 Draw: France Gets the Group O’Death

Laurie, Laurie, Laurie. You sound like our dear Raymond. We knew this could be a possibility since way back when, didn’t we? After wondering about the respective strengths of Romania and the Netherlands in the other post, I guess we’ll get to find out ahead of time. And of course we know Italy well already.
Bring it on.

BTW, if it makes you feel better, think of 2000 Euros and the qualifying group then. (Yeah, yeah, we had Deschamps and the Snake and the fab four backline back then, not to mention a certain ZZ. Work with me a bit, will you?)

no easy games thats true. this is the test that domenech claimed he wanted so we’ll see. Glatisant, I appreciate your intensity. We’ll see if the composition of the team is different now with these world class teams.

It pains me to say this, but I don’t think we can do this with both Makelele and Thuram as starters.

First: Romania isn’t “little” and “scrappy” ) After all, we won a group where the Netherlands were involved.
Second:the seedings aren’t idiotic, you played a bad qualification for WC2006 (5 draws in 12 isn’t a “good performance”), and you reached where it was normal for you to go (regarding pots). Actually, I’m going to simulate a seeding that takes in account the coefficients, with the hosts and Greece being in pot 1
POT 1: SWISS, AUSTRIA, ITALY, GREECE
POT 2: FRANCE, SPAIN, NETHERLANDS, CZECH
POT 3: GERMANY, ROMANIA, CROATIA, PORTUGAL
POT 4: TURKEY, SWEDEN, RUSSIA, POLAND

So France could have as easily been in a group with Italy, Germany and Russia. Not a big difference I think. You could replace Germany with Croatia if you’d like. The real pots provided 6 tough possible opponents out of 12, while my simulated pots provided 5 out of 12. Big difference

I wikied the coefficients: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings
The WCQuals progress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_%28UEFA%29#Group_4

So that no-one can say that I am lying May the best team get out of this group alive

Darth, I meant little and scrappy in a postive way, not a derogatory way. By “little” I meant “having far less money to spend than larger countries,” and by “scrappy” I meant “fighters.” It was respect, not derision. I don’t take the country lightly.

And I still think the seeding are idiotic and should have come from the FIFA rankings, the way they do for the World Cup draw.

Sorry about the misunderstanding. There is logic in the pot system ,because ,for example, France could have made a good coefficient by beating non-UEFA countries in the WC. After all, if I am to take it the way it is, EURO is an European competition, so only European encounters should matter. But of course, Germany beating Argentina, or France beating Brazil should be taken into consideration. But I won’t thrash the poting, despite the group that it brought to Romania

Laurie I think you’re right about the Makelele & Thuram comment. Domenech will be under enormous pressure to win NOW. I’m hopeful that he will make the necessary changes to get us past this group. The new generation wil have to play big.

Makelele is the best in his position. Sure, he is old but he still starts the important games for Chelsea, so he is important. Maybe he can play the important matches for France or the ones they need that extra bit of experience.

coffee,
re: Make, yes I think you’re right. Plus, the French trainers *really* are fantastic.
I think we’ll need a very good blend of experience and youth, plus talent and speed.
Last time we played Italy went 0-0. With Holland 0-0 I think. With Romania, hum maybe 1-0. We can do it if we have a clear scheme for the team, defense, midfield, attack, plus great subs.

I wish I had more confidence in Domenech’s ability to make decisions on a rational basis.

A good spot for one home country why not but for TWO home countries it’s unfair especially if these team are little teams. If we look the last results in WC or Euros there is no explanation why France isn’t in a good spot like Italia. The fact there are three of the best football nations in the same group is absurd. Moreover there could had a Netherland,France,Italy,Germany. The four most powerful europeans team in the same group. I wonder how France could be in the last spot being WC finalist and quarter finalist in last euro2004. Only Italy did better during WC, only Greece, Portugal, Netherland and Czeh Republic during Euro. Why on hell all the other teams had a better spot than France ? Frnace did better than Italy in the last Euro for example. So because Germany beat San Marino 13-0 they are better favorite than France ?

It’s a tough group but since when have France ever had it easy. Last World Cup we had to go through Spain, Brazil, and Portugal. Italy’s only big team was Germany. France plays best when their backs are against the wall, and this sort of thing is good for our character. Yeah we might not make it out of the group, but we’ll fight from the first minute until the last. And if we do make it out, we’ll have a good shot at making it to the final.

^^ Yeah that was actually a small point I noticed in WC 2006… Italy won the World Cup without ever having to face a single Latin American team. (The fault is partly on the LA teams, of course, for not getting very far.)

i guess it is about time to stop complaining about the group. it makes a better spectacle for the french fans, nail-biting edge of the seat stuff for the supporters. what i do not like is say, france and italy qualify from the group with the top two spots and they beat their quarterfinal opponents, they meet again in the semis. i think the organisers got that one wrong, they should have two teams from the same group meet only in the finals.

I do not doubt domenech’s decision making ability, Laurie, but i guess he can be very stubborn with a particular system and with certain players (example Trezeguet, Mexes)

Stop complaining! It’s a privilege to have the chance to face such excellent competition, and at least you guys qualified, unlike England. Things could be worse.

See what happens when a squad is poorly managed Luis? The reason we are so hard on Domenech is the talent is there as it was on the English team. Fouling this up now would be a crime.

Cybercoffee, my worry is that he will hold onto certain players too long, or not include players (Mexes, for example) for reasons that have nothing to do with what the team needs.

For the record, I thought Mexes played great the last time he played, but he was subbed out at the half and hasn’t played since. I can’t even remember when that was, but it wasn’t recent.

i believe there is an ego issue between mexes and domenech.

I don’t know why Darth disses France’s wc qualifying run — so many pundits say they were the only unbeaten country to make it to the wc. I don’t remember if that’s true but it’s what I’ve read many times.

Also — what is it about the football gods that they INSIST on putting Italy and France together all the time? They can’t avoid each other!

It’ll be interesting to see, tho, how long France’s hoodoo on Italy runs and if it’ll continue in the Euros next summer. Remember that Italy has not yet beaten France in open play since 1978 — they can only do it with penalties and I think that’s only happened once or twice. France, however, has beaten Italy both in open play and on penalties since then. There have been some draws as well. I’d like to see a run down of all the Italy-France football encounters since 1978 (actually, since all time) and their results — that includes friendlies too.

Sandrahn: http://www.fff.fr/cgi-bin/historique/hist_recherche.pl?pays=ITALIE&annee=&radiobutton=all&submit=Lancer+la+recherche

Thank you L’Américain!

[...] Who are similarly sick of seeing Buffon’s face (France Blog) [...]

I am delighted by the draw, bring it on I think the Dutch are very vulnerable but Romania somehow gives me pause. Nevertheless I hope that the France v Italy match is reduced to an exhibition match with both teams coming in to it with 6 points! The loser though gets Spain in the quarters, the winner likely gets Sweden or maybe Greece even. I love playing Spain, because a good friend of mine is a Spaniard

i hope so too that the france vs italy gets reduced to a qualification is not essential match. nevertheless, i see it as a draw even if it was an important match judging by the present team and tactics.

[...] The Celebrity Blog placed an interesting blog post on Euro ‘08 Draw: France Gets the Group O’DeathHere’s a brief overview [...]

i’d say this is bad from every point of view, think about how the poor dutch feel: “SHIT IT’S BAD ENOUGH WE’RE WITH ROMANIA AGAIN, BUT NOW WE HAVE ITALY AND FRANCE ALSO???” (no disrespect to dutch)
and look at a romanian point of view, they probably will get 4th (this coming from a romanian) despite all their efforts and how well they are playing, however no one here will go down without a fight
think of it this way: we’re gonna see some hella great games, and if romania gets 2nd and moves on, i think i speak for all of us when i say we’ll definetely have some stories to tell

Fellas,
am new to this board, i have one question- what is the reason trezegeut is not playing for france?

Roland, I did a post on this topic a couple of weeks ago: http://france.worldcupblog.org/euro-2008/my-thoughts-on-domenechs-trezeguet-snub.html

This is always an interesting topic of discussion and inspires passionate opinions every time a new callup list is announced, so be sure to stop by this blog regularly.

the reason Trezegol is not playing is because he missed the penalty in the world cup finals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wJ4×48PmMs

Roland, this is an interesting link of Trezeguet’s breakdown of the differences between Domenech’s system and the system he plays with in Italy. This supposedly took place in July of this year and Trezeguet cautiously says that he thinks France could be more productive with a different system. Domenech does not take criticism well from his players so maybe that plus an accumulation of other things could be part of the reason why we no longer see him in EDF.

Trezeguet has not played for EDF for a while, that doesn’t mean he won’t be playing this summer. Domenech may look as if he has no clue, but he could be managing Trzeguet’s ego, which has gone up the ceiling. May be the guy will psych up until he is full throttle again and does what he should be doing NO MATTER what system he plays in, that is score goals.

Good point Julien. I didn’t look at it that way. This would fall into the “acting”/”nerve messing”/puppet master quality that Inara mentioned Domenech posseses. There’s definitely something behind that smirk/twinkle in his eye during press conferences.

You know, I’ve wondered about my perception of ego since World Cup. I think you may be right — perhaps Domenech’s trying to put back that hunger.