France underachieving in World Cup Qualifying, but the FFF still thinks Domenech is the best option to lead the team

October 18th, 2008 | by: jeff |

If past performance is an indicator of future results, then the decision by the French Football Federation (FFF) to keep Raymond Domenech as the manager of France’s National Football team is cause for concern.

Group 7	Played	Points
Serbia	4	9
Lithuania	4	9
Austria	4	4
France	3	4
Romania	3	4
Faroe Islands	4	1

Domenech is getting some things right, such as playing Henry, Gourcuff, and Ribery as attackers, and featuring Toulalan in midfield; but he continues to get some big decisions wrong, like playing out-of-form defenders; and those poor decisions are reflected in the qualifying-campaign points total.

A notion that I heard repeatedly in the build-up to the 1998 World Cup from the French is that they were more “interested spectators” than avid supporters or fans of Les Bleus. Of course all that changed when France played well and won; but it’s a sentiment I feel creeping into my psyche.

I’m not a big supporter of a manager who doesn’t use the best players available, and as a result, leads an underachieving side.

I have a lot of faith in the abilities of the French players, and I could conceive of a scenario in which they go on from here to win the rest of their qualifiers, and take home the 2010 World Cup trophy. I can’t help but feel, though, that Domenech is one of the obstacles to success.

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Jean Pierre

i agree with u and i think that it’s ‘written in the stars of orion’ that france is not going to qualify because of –> Him.

You dont need to be a genius to play gourcuff henry ribery and toulalan, they are consistent as a (uhm, i dont know but very very consistent)

i think that the friendly with argentina in february will be at least 0-15 lose
Jean Pierre

hey, am i mistaken or does it really says on Zidanes personal website, http://www.zidane.fr , that he is going to play a match next month against Ronaldo to raise money for the poor?

“Bien qu’ayant mis un terme a sa carriere de joueur professionel en 2006, Zinedine Zidane s’est engage a continuer de jouer a l’occasion du Match contre la pauvrete.”

“Ronaldo et Zidane annoncent le prochain match contre la pauvrete qui se joera au Fes, au Maroc, le 17 Novembre.”
http://lyon.theoffside.com Inara

Zidane and Ronaldo are always doing charity matches together. It’s really cute actually.
Alex

I think Anelka should factor into Domench’s plans a little bit more substantially. He is currently starting for Chelsea and performing very well. Benzema and Henry seem inconsistent.
Jean-Michel

Henry is a calming influence up top. Him scoring recently helped up his stock again. Benzema is really not cutting it since the Euros. Since Benzema figures to be the future of France’s attack when Henry & Anelka are out of the picture, he’s getting some good exposure. For me he’s been a bit too invisible in the games he’s played recently to be the starter.
gaston

the article makes it depressing, its not the first time we where in tough group, look at the euro qualification group we where in, that was one hell of a tough group compared to the one we are in and we made it

i’m mainly concerned about defenders and strikers. we have plenty of experienced young defenders at our dispose but DM selects crappy ones or out of shape ones. let go of viera the guy is 31 in 2 years he will be 33, let him go in honor unlike what he did to thuram and makelele. strikers, benz our future striker isn’t cutting it for les blues, in fact if you look at his goals have been from small team or unimportant friendly games, we are severely lacking in strikers, 2 years from now henry, govou and anelka we be gone (saha is gone already), DM needs to find strikers quick, we the only european nation out of the big 4 league without major recognized young striker, jeremy menze, Julien QUERCIA, are strikers DM can call up for national duty

his selection needs to objective, can’t he see the obvious that some players suck
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

I’ve seen Menez in a couple of games for Roma and he’s been awesome. Not sure where he’d fit into the current lineup, though.

Malouda has also been surprisingly strong for Chelsea this year, with another goal today. I think that Scolari has been really good for both Malouda and Anelka, and maybe we shouldn’t write either of them off just yet.
lekarlokin

Frace Main problem is Diffence. we need 4 strong diffender. like Blank Desaly Thuram Laizarazu and we need a Zidan. We have gourcuff. he will be next zidane. i hope that.PlZ find some good deffender……….no more BUMSONG.i think Mandanda is like Lama.we need more than LAMA. Lama mean sad Drama 1993 against Bulgaria. Also Zinnola was culprite for that that match. So plzzz find a good keeper and deffender. The Difference between Platini era and zidan era is Zidans time France has good keeper and Deffender and platiini time we did not have quality deffender.
Terry from Florida

frey

escude mexes

is that good
jeff

All 3 of them are good players. Frey and Mexes haven’t taken their chances with France as well as they would have wanted, but your setup could work, with some luck.