France Injury Update: Mexès, Squillaci?

February 3rd, 2007 | by: Laurie | Comments Off

Yesterday I said I was done reporting injuries. Finished. No more. And that was especially true for defenders. And doubly so for centerbacks. Were you listening, Sébastien Squillaci? Apparently not.

Sébastien is scheduled to miss Lyon’s game tomorrow with a hamstring injury. Grrr.

And an update on the Philippe Mexès injury. (Thanks for Martha at Italy Offside for working diligently with google’s bizarre translations to find me details. My favorite phrase from this one: “the first one has made up for one strongly contusion to the skillful thigh.” Ah, yes. Those skillful thighs. But…um…yeah.)

Philippe is out with a foot injury and would have been questionable for the Roma-Inter game this weekend, had it been played. (And don’t get me started on that tragedy.) From the translated article, the Mexès portion. Which almost kind of makes sense: “separation to parcel out of the medium pereo of the left foot. It is not a fracture, but an infraction that forces to pass it more time in infirmary that on the field. In reality, to 48 hours from the contest, one is still thinking to replace it in feet, resorting to a taping, one fasciatura. But to the fine ones the good sense would have to prevail, because playing Mexes it would even risk the fracture.”

So my best guess is that he’s done something to his foot. He could still play but would risk a fracture. No word on what his condition will be on Wednesday, or on whether Domenech would consider playing him in this condition. My thought: Hey, Domenech’s already pissed off coaches in England and France for playing guys who aren’t fully fit and destroying them for their clubs. Why not go for a hat trick with Italy?

But back to the France Argentina game. Let’s see. Lilian Thuram is probably not playing. (More on that later.) If Squillaci’s out, and Mexès is out, who’s left? Gaël Givet (with 11 or twelve caps) is a possibility, although Domenech’s pick of Givet is garnering a lot of criticism in the French press. And then we have Julien Escudé , who I think has, what, one cap so far? We’re not talking about subs, folks, we’re talking about starters.

I’m not feeling really good here!!

One interesting possibility I read somewhere was to move Eric Abidal to the center and start Patrice Evra at left back. I adore both Abidal and Evra and both are having good years, so this sounds like a pragmatic solution. (Plus it would make me happy to have both playing. And we all know how important that is.) We also currently have two healthy right-backs (Willy Sagnol and François Clerc.) But Clerc has what, two caps?

In general, I’m thinking that if both Squillaci and Mexès are actually out, Domenech is going to have to call up somebody else. But who? Kind of makes you think he should have started grooming successors to Gallas and Thuram a long time ago!

It’s a good thing this is just a friendly. Let’s consider this a wake-up call and look forward to a high-scoring game.