France 2-0 Lithuania and a Record for Thierry Henry!

October 17th, 2007 | by: Laurie |

Whew. Three points.

For most of the game I was thinking it would be Scotland all over again — domination of possession, inability to score, and bad luck on the counterattack. Fortunately luck and Thierry Henry had other ideas. He put it away not once but twice to finish things off. And he broke Platini’s record also! France now has a new scoring king.

Congratulations Titi!

For the most part it was lovely play, but France still has issues in scoring against defensive teams. It’s hard to enjoy beauty when you’re not winning.

As far as players go, a few thoughts:

– Karim Benzema. Wow. He is going to be the most amazing talent. Domenech should start him every game from here on out to get him completely comfortable with being a full international before Euro ‘08. Not that he has far to go.

– I just can’t see how Raymond Domenech can even consider bringing Patrick Vieira back given the way Jeremy Toulalan is playing. Toulalan’s speed and eye for the field and willingness to go in for the tackle give the team a spark that they really need.

–I’m feeling generous after these games and thinking, What the heck. Let’s start Thierry Henry all through Euro 2008. (Which we will be playing in. Of course we will.) He may not have the pace he once had, but he does have game sense and experience. But I’m still hoping there’s a role for Nicolas Anelka.

– Franck Ribéry is another untouchable. He created an amazing number of chances today. With luck more of them will go in against Ukraine.

– I’d really like to see Jérôme Rothen play more to see what he offers vs. Florent Malouda. Rothen seemed to fit into the team style of play effortlessly on Saturday, and his ability to distribute the ball seemed better than Malouda’s. And we could sure use some more skill in dead ball situations. On the other hand, Malouda has those blazing bursts of speed. But too frequently he seems to end up blasting up the field and then not doing anything. What do you think?

– Hatem Ben Arfa had his moments after being subbed in, but he still plays young. I’m hoping Domenech will play him a lot in friendlies next year to give him experience.

–It’s hard to offer up thoughts on the defense because they didn’t do much. They were caught napping a couple of times, though. Let’s hope that gets fixed before Ukraine.

All in all, though, I’m happy! Georgia and Scotland did us a huge favor with the Georgia win, so our odds of moving on are still pretty good. I’m not sure I can make myself root for Italy in November, though, so I’m still really hoping our boys can beat Ukraine.

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Johan

I think Vieira fully deserves his place in France XI. I mean look at the game against Italy at San Siro, while he played injured ! Look at his carreer and his last World Cup.
Toulalan is a good player, though he doesnt have the talent of Vieira. I watched some games of Toulalan during his champion’s league campaign (Lyon’s defeats VS. Barcelona, and the Rangers) and he was really inconstant in the midfield.
Vieira is more technical, powerfull, and offensive than Toulalan is.
Patrick is the man !
http://lyon.theoffside.com Inara

Johan, I disagree about Toulalan not being as talented. If you paid any attention to Lyon games, you would have noticed that against Barca, he was played out of position, and furthermore, the entire team played crappy. He didn’t even play against Rangers (he was sick). Watch some of his CL games from last year – even as a newbie onto the European scene, he was a beast. And try to watch some of his L1 games too.

He is all about the talent. He is a tough player, has great tackling skills, excellent positional sense, is tactically intelligent, and has good passing skills. He’s also all about hard work and determination. All he lacks is the experience of Vieira and Makelele, but I believe in five years time, he will have surpassed them in terms of importance to the team. In fact, He’ll be captain of Les Bleus one day, I think.

I’ve loved the guy since he was at Nantes, love him even more now that he’s at Lyon, and I will love him no matter where he ends up (because let’s face it, Lyon won’t be able to keep him for more than another year or two).

As to whether Vieira deserves his place in the starting 11, I think it depends game to game and on his physical condition. He was terrible against Scotland, and along with Makelele, it’s looking like they are losing their abilities to play high level back to back matches.
Skillz

If Shevchenko plays he’ll score a goal but Ukraine will lose or tie. If Shevchenko doesnt play than Ukraine will win for sure. This is what I’ve noticed of Ukraine, when their captain is gone than every one else HAS to step it up.
Francois

Why not put Shev in as a late substitute?
Skillz

Blokhin will paly him
sandrahn

skillz, that’s the famous Patrick Ewing syndrome — identified by an American sports writer in an article about basketball. Take out a talented, key player who gets all the media attention, and BANG!, the team starts winning games as a unit. Sort of like Arsenal this season.

Oh and a great big HUGE THANK YOU TO THE GLORIOUS MUCH-MALIGNED THIERRY HENRY SAVING FRANCE LAST NIGHT!! Boy, I miss him playing in an Arsenal shirt!!
Laurie

“Take out a talented, key player who gets all the media attention, and BANG!, the team starts winning games as a unit. Sort of like Arsenal this season.”

Or the Galaxy (my other blog) without Beckham.
http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/world-cup-round-up-south-africa-qualifying-match-fixing-poland-kyrgyzstan-cruise.html World Cup Round Up: South Africa Qualifying, Match fixing Poland, Kyrgyzstan Cruise – World Cup Blog

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