Sebastien Frey
Sagnol, Gallas, Thuram, Evra
Ribery, Vieira, Nasri, Benzema, Makelele
Henry

I am a hardcore arsenal fan and I am sure Henry can still relive the highbury years before he bows out of international football.
The days of eccentric french goalies a la Barthez and Lama are numbered. Frey and Mandanda, especially after the latter’s meteoric rise for OM last season, are the future for les bleus goalkeeping woes. Does anyone else see what Domenech sees in Coupet? Me neither

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/06/15/sfnfra215.xml

A partial excerpt:

“History shows you that France’s great periods have coincided with times when they have had one superstar, surrounded by 10 good players. The two big steps forward in French football were when Michel Platini came into the team and later when Zidane appeared. In his time we played in three World Cup tournaments and reached two finals.

“Without him, the French side is split into two. There is a generation around 30 and a generation of players around 20 years old, with nobody in between. At the back, they have probably too much experience; in other words, they are getting old. Also, France did not take their chances against Holland and, when a team does that, it shows that collective belief is missing.

“Some of their football was quite nice but you never felt they were prepared to die to win. At 3-1 down I had the feeling that they had given up. France still have fantastic potential but now the doubts have crept in – and a footballer’s biggest enemy is doubt.”

I’ve just gone thru all the commentary posted here since Friday and wanted to post my own thoughts.

The Dutch are playing like Arsenal at their best — a kind of “total football” but not quite as good as the original from the 70s. Still, it’s good enuf.

Both France and Italy gave them far too much space and allowed them to play. Teams like Romania and Greece do not allow teams like the Dutch to play. The Dutch will have a harder time against Romania, esp. if they use 2nd string players to give their better players a rest. That doesn’t mean they can’t win the game since Romania will have to leave their closed shop at least ajar if they’re to win and advance.

At every int’l tournament, barring France (and Brazil at the wc), I always want to see Holland or Spain finally overcome their years of underachievement and go on to win the trophy. I love both teams’ style of play, their players are among my favorites. (I also favor Turkey, I quite enjoyed their dramatic win yesterday, would love to see them shock everyone and win it). So I’m always happy to see the Dutch play like this.

However, we’ve seen this time and time again with both countries: they flatter to deceive. They start out well and then implode. One difference with this Dutch team is that, unlike previous ones, van Basten has managed to fend off the endless infighting within the Dutch squad. That has always been Holland’s downfall. At the 2006 wc, I was not the only one mystified as to why van Nistlerooy was omitted from the Dutch squad. Apparently he and van Basten were not on speaking terms. But this time he’s there. In fact, all the major Dutch players I know of–except Seedorf–are there. So who knows…maybe van Basten has managed something previous Dutch managers failed at. But will this unity last?

As to France…they had a crap game v. Romania in which France showed a strong, solid defense. Domenech duly changed his formation and team selection, opened up his closed shop, and promptly conceded 4 goals. The fact is that Domenech’s team selection was not bad at all on Friday, he did what everyone said he should do. Ok, he didn’t put on Benzema (and I agree he should’ve used him)–but people forget that Benzema did not have a good game v. Romania. Neither did Benzema impress in recent friendlies. Maybe Domenech doesn’t have much faith in Benzema yet.

For me, the problem is that in all these friendlies and qualifiers, Domenech has failed to find the right balance between youth and experience, the right partnerships, the right team cohesion. It isn’t that he lacks talent, and any idiot who comes on here and says that France lacks talent doesn’t know football. There are world cup winners, Euro winners, CL winners and league/domestic cup winners throughout the team.

But as we all know, individual talent doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have the right formations, tactics, partnerships and pairings, and selection. But more importantly, above all, it means nothing if you don’t have team COMMITMENT, SOLIDARITY, PASSION and COHESION. The France team I saw on Friday did not have much hunger at all.

Domenech has been struggling to find the right balance and he simply hasn’t found it. I think a better, more gifted manager would’ve found it by now. I don’t think Domenech is as crap as everyone says, I just think he’s average. He’s not up to the demands of these tournaments. The Scottish commentator over on Fox Soccer Channel, Bobby McMahon, said that Domenech will be roasted in France for Friday’s result but unfairly because he did what he should’ve done in his team selection. It’s simply that the Dutch were better, more committed, more fired up, more clinical and unified.