France-Paraguay Preview (and Vieira’s Out)

Bad news. France Football is reporting that Patrick Vieira is out for at least these two friendlies with “une lésion sur la cuisse gauche.” Not being particularly medical, I’m not sure what that is, but some kind of injury to the left thigh. And you’re probably remembering, as I am, that he’s missed a lot of the past year with thigh injuries. NOT good. And not only that, he’ll probably be out against Romania, too.

I don’t know about you, but I really wanted to see Vieira in these friendlies. He’s been out so much this past year that I needed convincing that he could do the job.

So now Domenech needs to decide whether to keep him on the team in hopes that he’ll be able to make a difference in the later games, or cut him and call up somebody else. What would you do?

Paraguay’s recent record:

Thu 5/22 A – Ivory Coast D, 1 – 1 Friendly
Tue 5/27 A – Japan D, 0 – 0 Friendly

This is the lineup I’m finding so far: Coupet – Clerc, Boumsong, Gallas, Evra – Makelele, Vieira (ou Toulalan) – Ribéry, Malouda – Henry, Benzema. It looks like Raymond’s experimenting more at the back and going with his #1 choices on attack. I’d also expect to see Gomis subbed in at some point, just to see if Tuesday was a fluke.

The game is on Setanta, and I’m planning to liveblog it again, so check back as we get close to kickoff. In the US the game is at 3:00 Eastern, noon Pacific, but Setanta will not be showing the beginning — they’ll be joining in progress. I HATE when they do that. Last time was the final Lyon game of the season, and when they tuned in at the ten minute mark we’d already missed two goals.

If you have stream links, leave them in the comments. Allez les Bleus!

France’s run of games:
Tue 5/27 H- Ecuador W, 2 – 0 Friendly
Sat 5/31 H – Paraguay 15:00 ET Friendly
Tue 6/3 H – Colombia 15:00 ET Friendly
Mon 6/9 A – Romania 12:00 ET European Championship

Should be a cracker.