My Guesses on the 29 Players for Tomorrow’s France List

May 17th, 2008 | by: Laurie |

Here are my best guesses for the names that will be on the 29-person list. If you disagree, tell me who you’d include instead.

(I’m using l’Equipe’s position classification here. For example, I’m listing Ben Arfa as a forward even though he’d probably play in the midfield under the 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 I expect Domenech to go with.)

Goalkeepers: Coupet, Landreau, Frey. Possible: Mandanda

Defenders: Abidal, Evra, Thuram, Gallas, Mexes, Escudé (depending on injury status),Squillaci, Sagnol, Clerc, Sagna. Possible: Boumsong, Clichy

Midfielders: Makelele, Vieira, Toulalan, Lassana Diarra, Mavuba, Flamini, Ribéry, Malouda, Nasri. Possible: A. Diarra, Rothen, Valbuena

Forwards: Henry, Anelka, Cissé, Benzema, Govou, Ben Arfa, Trezeguet. Possible: Saha.

I do think Trezeguet will be on this preliminary list. I’m not sure he’ll be on the final Euro list. And wouldn’t that be an ugly blow?

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briguy

How can Domenech leave out Valbuena? Seems to me he has to be included.

BTW, Laurie, besides L’Equipe, where do you go for football news en francais? I read francefootball.fr (mostly Ligue 1, but lots of Les Bleus coverage when appropriate), but am always looking for other sources (besides you, and the Offside, of course).
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

Aside from l’Equipe and the fff site http://www.fff.fr/bleus/index.shtml , I don’t have a lot of sites I visit regularly. Sometimes Sport24.com http://www.sport24.com/football/equipe-de-france/ and Football365.fr. http://www.football365.fr/bleus/

I do have news on several key players (and Domenech, of course) emailed to me every day through Google Alerts. http://www.google.com/alerts. Or, in French, I’ll sign up for an “Alerte Google” through google.fr. http://www.google.fr/alerts

And a lot of times I’ll see something in the English press, or get an English-language alert, and then I’ll go to google.fr and click on “Actualités” to get a fuller story. Or I’ll just go to the google Actualités page and type in something like “Benzema” or “Anelka” and see if anything pops up.

And this probably isn’t incredibly straightforward or helpful, is it? Anybody else, feel free to chime in with your own favorite news sources, English or français.
http://senegal.worldcupblog.org Magnusson

The list is out, Trezeguet has not been called up. Sagan and Clichy neither. Rothen won’t be there, but Bafétimbi Gomis will.
That sucks for us.
http://arsenal.theoffside.com Abby

No Sagna, no Clichy. I feel for them, but I can’t help be a little selfishly pleased that they get a summer off…

And there’s only one Arsenal player in the French squad. When was the last time that happened?
jeff

Abby – It’s very strange to only have Gallas and Flamini in there from Arsenal. Sanga and Clichy would have both been great for France, and I’m ready to curse Domenech if I see any reason to believe that the squad is suffering from their absence. Diaby, though, I think has himself to blame for not pushing on and doing more this season.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

Didn’t I read that Diaby is injured?
sandrahn

Sagna’s been injured too.