France Injury Woes Mount

You didn’t want to read that headline, did you? (Unless you’re a Scotland or Italy fan. In which case… Well, you can stay, but absolutely no gloating, or I’ll buy those voodoo dolls that Russian woman used against England that affect your players’ man-parts.)

But…um…yeah. Injuries. This is depressing. Our list gets longer every day, and we’re talking about starters, people. We have three weeks. Or twenty days, if you’re counting, for our players to get healthy. Come on, guys! There’s a lot of work to do.

Thierry Henry is apparently not playing for Barca against Valladolid and is also in doubt for next week’s Champions League match against Rangers because of some Achilles tendon thing.

And in equally bad news, Eric Abidal has done something to his ankle and will also miss today’s game. I’ll look for details on the injuries and report back. Interestingly, it says Abidal will be replaced by Lilian Thuram. Barcelona fans, has Abidal been playing in the center, or is Thuram coming on as leftback? I’m having a hard time visualizing a thirty-five-year-old leftback, even if it is someone high on my Adored Players list.

In other depressing news, Franck Ribéry is still out for Munich, but they seem to be taking this one week to week (or day to day) rather than saying it’s long term, so I’ve got my fingers crossed.

And Julien Escudé will be out for three weeks with…poor guy…a “pubis injury.” (Stop snickering, okay? This is serious.)

Nicolas Anelka is also still injured. I’m not finding details at the moment, but I’m assuming it’s still that thigh injury he picked up against the Faroes. And Louis Saha is apparently still out as well.

And the news on Patrick Vieira’s calf injury turned out to be not good, so it looks like he’ll be out for the rest of the year. And yes, JérémyToulalan is still out as well. (But I’m hoping and praying he’ll be fit before the 21st.)

So let’s take a look here at injuries by position. (This is not going to be pretty folks. Take some Pepto Bismol or dramamine before reading, or I’m not responsible for the results.)

Goalkeeper: Grégory Coupet
Rightback: Willy Sagnol
Central defense : Julien Escudé
Leftback: Eric Abidal, and also Julien Escudé.
Holding midfielders: Patrick Vieira, Jérémy Toulalan
Attacking midfielders: Franck Ribéry
Forwards/strikers: Nicolas Anelka, Thierry Henry, Louis Saha

I’m feeling queasy. Maybe I should have taken the dramamine before I wrote that.