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

By: World Cup Round Up: South Africa Qualifying, Match fixing Poland, Kyrgyzstan Cruise - World Cup Blog

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:47:48 +0000

[...] Spanning the Blog * Thank you, Georgia. Thank you (Italy World Cup Blog) * The fans are rowdy in the Great White North (Canada World Cup Blog) * Not so happy with the win (Netherlands World Cup Blog) * 13 minutes of fame (USA World Cup Blog) * A record for TH14 (France World Cup Blog) [...]

By: Laurie

Laurie — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:25:11 +0000

“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.

By: sandrahn

sandrahn — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:23:48 +0000

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!!

By: Skillz

Skillz — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:21:25 +0000

Blokhin will paly him

By: Francois

Francois — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:44:37 +0000

Why not put Shev in as a late substitute?

By: Skillz

Skillz — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:19:07 +0000

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.

By: Inara

Inara — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:19:16 +0000

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.

By: Johan

Johan — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:03:18 +0000

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 !