May 18 is Squad Announcement Day

April 10th, 2008 | by: Laurie |

Can you believe that Euros are less than two months away? That’s feeling painfully close.

So close that it’s time to mark our calendars for May 18 — the day that Raymond Domenech will announce the squad for Euros. Kind of.

Apparently he’s going to name more than the 23 players allowed on the roster, and then winnow it down based on the injury situation after all non-Euro competitions are over.

“From May 18 there will be the Champions League final, the French Cup, the Italian Cup, a lot of players will still be in competition, it will be either a definitive list, fixed or an extended list,” Domenech told French television.

“The idea of keeping as many players as possible under pressure doesn’t satisfy me, it puts the players in a complicated situation with doubts, uncertainties, but we have to set a date (for the list).”

Domenech has opted for a system which was used by Aime Jacquet before the 1998 World Cup which France won whereby players who are named on May 18 may not make it to the Euro 2008 finals.

Nicolas Anelka, aka my favorite former bad boy, is one of those against this enlarged list. Back in 1998, he was one of the six players called up and then axed before World Cup.

The Chelsea striker would not wish the same fate on somebody else, especially those who have not got too many more major international tournaments to look forward to.

“I have experienced being in that list of six,” Anelka told French radio station RMC.

“I don’t think it is a good idea because it makes it worse for players. At the time, I was 19 or 20 so it was okay for me. But for those who had never taken part in a World Cup, it really hurt them. It is hard for people to recover from being dropped like that. The best solution would be to take 23 players and say that if there are injuries, such and such a player will come into the 23.”

Domenech says no, though. He “to keep as many players as I can under pressure for as long as possible.”

Wait a second. Didn’t the first article say he DIDN’T want to keep players under pressure? I’m confused.

It would certainly suck to be one of those cut players, though, wouldn’t it? We should start a pool to bet on who they’re going to be. Becase somebody should profit from these guys’ misery.

My bets? Mexes and Trezeguet.

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http://www.wickeddeflection.com/ jeff

I really hope Anelka’s not one of the players dropped.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

That would break my heart, Jeff. It does bother me that he’s seeing so little playing time at Chelsea. I really had hopes there — for some stupid reason I assumed they’d happily switch to 4-4-2 and play Anelka and Drogba up front together. Instead Nico seems to be on the bench every time I check.

But the above Anelka article said something about Anelka being almost certain to be on the squad, and I can’t imagine them going to Euros without him, especially since Henry’s not really in form lately. Benzema’s great, but I don’t think you can build a team around him yet.
http://ghana.worldcupblog.org Inara

I don’t think Domenech will be too worried about Anelka’s club performances. Once a player has established himself on the NT, he ceases to care how they perform in their clubs (wait, this also applies to Trezeguet).

So this is a good thing for players like Henry, Malouda, Makelele, Benzema, Toulalan, Diarra, Abidal, etc, who are either having so-so times in their clubs or are currently injured. The players for whom club performances do matter are the ones who aren’t established, like Nasri, Ben Arfa, Govou, Cisse, Flamini, Mexes, Frey, etc.
Seb

I have to second what Inara said above. It would be a really big shock if Anelka wasn’t among the 23 included. Then again, here’s an interesting trivia question, what was the last tournament he participated in?

It was Euro 2000, which was, sadly enough, the last tournament we won, actually. So knowing Domenech and his adoration of trivial connections, I would say Nico is already on the list.

I don’t know if Diarra is a certainty, though. Domenech adores him, though a guy such as Bodmer I would say brings more skill with the same versatility.

In any event, it will be sad to be among those who are écarté at the end. I hope it’s not Mexès and Trezeguet, although it could very well be knowing Domenech’s biases. I’m hoping it’s Cissé and Govou.
http://ghana.worldcupblog.org Inara

I’m pretty sure Govou will be on the squad. First, his performances this season certainly do merit it, and he has the same versatility as Ribery in that he can play on both sides.

I’d love to see Bodmer over Diarra, but Domemench is going to take at least four DMs, and while Bodmer has many talents, Domenech doesn’t place much importance on creativity. It’ll either be Bodmer or Nasri, and I think it will be Nasri.