Mandanda pour Les Bleus?

May 20th, 2008 | by: jeff |

This one has good audio – French commentary.

Stève MANDANDA. The goal keeper is quality. Qualité. The kind of player that Jean Tigana, as manager of Fulham, once described to the English press as a “very good joueur.”

Snippets of the text, out of order, follow. Look for more in the comments. N’ hésitez pas a ajouter des sous-titres en anglais dans les commentaires.

Translated commentary: “Mandanda can’t get a look in with France because he plays behind Coupet, Landreau and Frey.”

Here’s a poll question:

Who’s howler was worse: Landreau against Scotland or Frey against; who was it?

If you can find videos of either of those, post a link in the comments and we’ll embed it into the post.

Check out these France bloggers. They only post around big events for Les Bleus, but they have a lot to say (fairly obsessive about their French football), they’re good writers, in English, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of their opinions. If you’re into that sort of thing check out their blog and tell them where they’ve gone wrong. They don’t mind a good-spirited windup.

France World Cup Blog RSS Feed

Michel-Olivier

i don’t really like steve. i heard thuram cousin Yohann is a better goal keeper. in a few years i think Yohann will make the french NT.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

Wasn’t Frey’s howler against Morocco? That’s what my memory is saying, but it’s not always right. And I think I believe him when he says the light was in his eyes.
Jean-Michel

I believe it was Ukraine and it was Sheva that scored.
Jean-Michel

Thanks for the link to the blog. It reads like this blog and they are right on the money on just about everything.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

You may be right about the Ukraine game, Jean-Michel. All I remember was that it didn’t really count, but that would have been true for either game after Italy knocked out Scotland.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

Ah, there we go. It was Ukraine.

http://france.worldcupblog.org/euro-2008/ukraine-2-2-france.html
http://lesbleusfrancefoot.wordpress.com/ jean pierre

yup, it was ukraine. stephane will never forgive him for that…

thanks for the link! co-incidentally we’ve just found your site ourselves – on monday steph emailed me with a link to your site and we’ve been browsing it since.

its really good to see another france site out there and its been very cool having you guys visit our site and leaving comments! its going to make the euros a lot more fun with other people (other than steph and myself) to talk to!

i haven’t seen steve much – steph has scouted him a bit and said he’s the business. i’ll have to have a look at that video when i get the chance!

but yeah, its very very frustrating with such a talented player behind landreau and frey. frey i can understand because of fiorentina – but landreau! thats just misplaced loyalty.

even though the situation for steve looks bad at the moment, all it needs is for landreau to fall out of the pecking order. coupet doesn’t have too many games left in him, should landreau fall behind steve, we’d then have frey at no.1 and steve at no.2 – which would be pretty cool if you ask me.

after all, we can’t ask the guy to go straight to number one!

also, i think frey deserves another look because of his fiorentina form. landreau, well, he’s just capable and in my mind should be nothing else but a back-up keeper in a crisis.
http://lesbleusfrancefoot.wordpress.com/ Stephane

Hey guys, thanks for kind words and the link up to our blog!

Landreau’s was awful. AWFUL. he was really caught out. and it meant a lot, at the time.
Mind you Frey’s was comical, but it’s the kind of mistake that you know happens rarely…wheras Landreau’s, for me, it makes me wonder about why he’s #2.
Benjamin

i lov mandanda. 22 years old omg! he realy has the right attitude to be the best.
i think landreau’s was worst because of the circumstances…the scotland game was very important in the middle of qualifying, while frey’s mistake was done once qualifying was over, and i relaly believe frey when he said after hte game that a spotlight blinded him while he made the mistake.

this is totaly of topic, but did anyone notice how well makelele played today for chelski against the mancs? i am so happy he is on our side. he totally dominated and passed very well.

Encore trois semaine avant le debut de l’aventure.
ALLER LES BLEUS!!
Doumé

Yeah, Makélélé was absolutely great today. What a guy. Evra did a good job on the other side too.
I do feel sorry for Anelka, though. I haven’t seen enough of Malouda to tell whether he was a real factor. Well, since Nasri is coming there, that could be quite interesting, kind of the making of a nucleus of a national team playing every week.
Michel-Olivier

he(domeshit) should drop anelka and bring back trezeguet and jimmy briand
http://lesbleusfrancefoot.wordpress.com/ jean pierre

yeah, maks was excellent, wasn’t he?! so good to know he’s french. and evra too…!
Doumé

Speaking of goalkeepers, what’s up with Coupet?
He is now confirming that he will leave Lyon, but doesn’t say where he will go. The rumor was Tottenham, but OL says no. Coupet also said he wanted to come play in the US. So, he leaves but goes nowhere?
What do you think, could he be hoping to have a good Euro performance so that offers come rolling in??
http://www.lequipe.fr/Football/breves2008/20080523_213721_coupet-annonce-son-depart_Dev.html