France Foto: Brothers in Misery

May 28th, 2008 | by: Laurie |

Am I a sadist for bringing this photo out today?

I found it awhile back and it’s always fascinated me. It’s David Trezeguet being comforted by Djibril Cisse after his penalty miss in World Cup 2006.

The crutch comes from that leg break that kept Djibril from being part of the squad. And he also wasn’t able to play in Euro 2004 because he was serving a five-match ban for kicking a Portuguese player when he was playing with les Espoirs. So this makes a triple blow. Poor Djibril.

Maybe the two of them can get together for a vacation for the entire month of June and spend the month commiserating?

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Benjamin

i feel bad for cisse, he isnt great, but he tries and his season didnt deserve him a spot on the team, but his unlucky injuries from wc2006 and suspensions did.
i was personally hoping to see some goals a la trezeguet before the tournament like the italie france euro2000 final goal. i guess we will have to wait for next time.

lets all pray that henry and anelfa find good form, and that benzema and gomis dont fall under pressure
http://scotland.worldcupblog.org Ian Rose

I went looking for a picture of Cisse for the main page post today, and the first thing that came up (of course) was that horrible picture of his leg injury. I had let myself forget what a nasty one it was, and Eduardo had taken its place at the front of my “Oh My God” leg injury file. I feel bad for him that he didn’t make it, but France has SO MANY strikers that even guys like Trez and Cisse are B-teamers. Insane.
http://senegal.worldcupblog.org Magnusson

Djibril deserves to be on this team, no matter what.
He wasn’t there in 2004 because he went on to play against Portugal when Santini told him not to but he liked Domenech so much he went anyway and got banned. In 2006, well, there was China.
And now this? I really feel it’s a lot for one huy. People hate the image and everything but this is a human being who didn’t deserve this.
Seb

I think the feeling is that despite Cissé’s misfortunes, in the end, he doesn’t come out as that considerate of a guy. As in, he has that image and what not of appearing better than he truly is, while he’s definitely not the model teammate either, I believe. Domenech likes him, though.
Patrick

I’m not even a Cissé fan, but I’m really sad that Domenech chose to cut him.
Doumé

Laurie,
Yes it’s really no luck for Cissé (who looks truly compassionate on this), I think if a few little things had turned differently, he would have done better, like in the late action in the England game, where he had done the hardest, but totally missed his shot. I think Anelka climbed back from the whole by managing things like that, and putting a lid on the attitude. Once again he would make practically *any* national team other than France, along with Trez.

For what it’s worth, the Guardian has had a poll about which team to support at the Euro, with sometimes people mentioning the numbers of players who play in the League. Wouldn’t you know it, France isn’t even in the running.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/euro2008chooseateam
http://ghana.worldcupblog.org Inara

According to UEFA, France is no longer the team with the oldest average age – now it’s Italy.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

Inara, do you have a link for that?
http://lyon.theoffside.com Inara

Here you go!

http://www.euro2008.uefa.com/news/kind=1/newsid=702968.html
Seb

Wow, very interesting, Inara. I think that if we take Maké and Thuram out, we could actually be below the mean, I think, though wait, now that I mention it, we’d have to count out Coupet, too. Though I do think it’s noteworthy that Italy didn’t bring anyone below 24 (Chiellini/Aquilani turn 24 this summer), whereas we have a decent amount (Benzema, Nasri, Mandanda, Diarra, Gomis). Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t make much of this as Italians tend to emerge at a more advanced stage in their career, anyway (Luca Toni).