No Gourcuff, No Ribery, No Problem?

October 5th, 2009 | by: jeff |

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst, I always say.

And thank goodness for Group 9, because the worst, if France can win at home against the Faroe Islands, will be advancing to the playoffs. As a couple commenters have clarified, the 2nd-place finisher in France’s group will not be the worst 2nd-place finisher, so we don’t have to worry about finishing 2nd, but missing the playoffs. Group 9 is finished, and France already have enough points against non-Faroe-Islands teams, 12, to avoid the distinction of being the worst of the 2nd-place finishers. (This assumes that Faroe Islands will finish last in Group 7).

That leaves France needing to stay ahead of Austria to qualify for the playoffs, or pass Serbia to win the group.

Serbia’s last two matches are against Romania and Lithuania, and there’s certainly a possibility that they’ll blow their chance of winning the group. Mathematically, France can still win it, although that’s hard to imagine after the most recent debacle: collecting only two points from the two qualifiers in September.

Here are France’s results and fixtures:

The playoffs will be played over two legs on the 14th and 18th of November. Eight of the nine 2nd-place finishers will go into a draw for the playoffs. Four of those eight will advance to the World Cup in 2010.

Gourcuff and Ribery both out injured

When a team is in as much disarray as France, I fear any changes can crush what little confidence and cohesion there is. With Gourcuff and Ribery both out, the promising system that Domenech had stumbled upon (keeper; Sagna, Gallas, Defender, Evra; Diarra, Toulalan; Ribery, Gourcuff, Henry; Striker) is out the window.

But despite that, and despite Domenech and his disappointing record, France will surely make the playoffs at a minimum.

They’ve earned 4 wins and 3 draws to post 15 points on the board. By France’s high standards, it’s disappointing, but they’re still positioned to make the World Cup. A lot of nations would be happy to be in a position to qualify for the World Cup, and with that perspective, I’m focused on hoping that France will find a way to qualify.

The Domenech era has really been taking a toll on morale. The extreme cases might want to see France fail, to have a catharsis from the frustration Domenech’s time in charge, and although that might be a fringe sentiment, there’s still widespread disillusionment.

When my in-laws from France were visiting in August, they wouldn’t even watch France’s World Cup qualifier with me. When my wife’s friend from school visited; and he’s quite an amiable guy, normally, with a limited penchant for hyperbole; but he said, “I hate Domenech.” Former France player Dugarry had quotes in the paper today about how he thinks Domenech has done everything wrong, and can’t make a single right decision. Taken literally, that’s a bit overboard, but there’s a general understanding of his sentiment.

If France do qualify for the World Cup, it’s going to require some outstanding performances between now and then to get a lot of French supporters to care. That’s the kind of catharsis I’m looking for. A string of 7-0 victories. Come on, who wouldn’t enjoy that, no matter how you feel about Domenech?

I’m a bit of a lone voice in support of the system that Domenech has stumbled on, but having two of the key players out is a worry.

Hopefully he’ll just play a straight-forward attacking lineup, and France will win against Faroe Islands by a comfortable margin. Anelka and Benzema are in decent form for their clubs. They should be able to score some goals. Henry and Gignac are other good options. Maybe all 4 of them shouldn’t play at the same time, but there could be plenty of simple systems that could use 3 of them.

Domenech will probably line them up something like this:

Henry Gignac Anelka
Malouda L.Diarra Toulalan
Evra Escude Gallas Sagna
Lloris

That should at least get us to the playoffs, and I, for one, meanwhile will be keeping an eye on the result of the Serbia-Romania match, as naive as that might sound.

Update: I had overlooked Malouda. He’ll probably get in there ahead of Govou, so I updated my lineup, although the team might be unbalanced on the right, at the least the way Doms sees it. He loves having Govou wide right, so maybe I was right the first time.

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Comments

By pat | October 6th, 2009 at 12:27 am

About the way the best 8 runners-up are selected, groups with 6 teams will not take into account the result with the last team of the group, for us probably Faroe. Only then the worst of the runners-up will be eliminated.

Posted from France

By jeff | October 6th, 2009 at 6:30 am

Ah, so it’s too complicated to assess by just looking at the tables.

By GFC | October 6th, 2009 at 8:08 am

Les Bleus need 3 points to qualify for the runner up play offs -

Currently they are 4 points up on Austria, assuming Austria wins their match (Austria faces Lithuania, who they lost 2-0 to in the first leg) at worst France will head into the last match up 1 point on Austria – if France lose to Faroe, and let us face it, if that happens they can beat Austria 14-0 they still don’t deserve to go to the WC. If France only draws with Faroe and Austria wins, then France must at least get a draw against Austria in the final match, since only 2 points will separate the two nations. If Les Bleus beat Faroe, then it is all academic since they head into the last match with at least a 4 point cushion so even a loss to Austria sees France on to the play off.

As for the playoff – whoever finishes 2nd in group 7 is heading through as one of the 8 best 2nd place teams – group 9 is the group with 5 teams, they have no more games and Norway and Scotland finished tied for second on 10 points. In order to adjust for the number of teams in group 9, you will take away all the points from each groups last place team. Meaning whomever finishes 2nd in group 7 will subtract the points taken from the Faroe Islands – so even if France do not gain another point and Austria loses to Lithuania and then beats France – so France take 2nd place with 15 points and Austria has 14 – you eliminate the 3 points from the earlier Faroe win (under this scenario France lose to Faroe in the second game) and now France is at 12 points so beat out Norway/Scotland.

Bottom line – beat the Faroes and prepare for the play offs!

More on the situation – http://thebeantownfrog.blogspot.com/2009/10/finish-line-in-sight-domenech-announces.html

Posted from United States

By jeff | October 6th, 2009 at 8:21 am

Right. France already have 12 points against non-Faroe Island teams, which is more than the Group 9 Second place teams have altogether (10).

So France only have to worry about Austria overtaking them in the group.

Posted from United States

By lefutur | October 6th, 2009 at 9:37 am

I think Domenech will go into panic mode and play 3 defensive midfielders and a single striker.

Posted from United States

By jeanpierre | October 6th, 2009 at 2:01 pm

no gourc no rib = eek, meaning we will fail at all instead of only 90% of set pieces and attack pieces

i agree with lefutur

domeench is not so inpredictable

Posted from Netherlands

By GFC | October 6th, 2009 at 5:45 pm

Jeff…I fear you might be right! I could see Toulalan, ADiarra and Diaby (Lass might be out for the Faroes) in the midfield with gouvou and malouda as offensive midfielders and Henry alone at the point….maybe they could score on the break against the Faroes….

Posted from United States

By lefutur | October 6th, 2009 at 7:52 pm

wait…lassana diara might be out? ok, now domenech will have no choice but to call up benoit cheyrou if its true. and i hope he does, this midfield are a bunch of clones.

Posted from United States

By Jean-François | October 6th, 2009 at 8:14 pm

I am very frightened that France will not qualify. France seems to be bad at qualifying, always….even in the Zidane era.

By terry from florida | October 6th, 2009 at 8:55 pm

i can tell you one think the day domenech is no longer the coach it will be the 4 th best day in french soccer history the first one winning the world cup the 3 euro championship,the french are so tired of that guy that i don’t even think they care, honestly if it’s to og to south africa and get ridiculed than i hope we don’t qualify, maybe they will win both games 1-0 and domenech will be out………….yea right lol

for what is worth THOUGH IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN

frey
sagna gallas toulalan evra
diarra
nasri gorcuff ribery
aneka henry

By princedesparcs | October 6th, 2009 at 10:36 pm

Damn, rough crowd. Y’all takin’ the bus to Saint-Denis?

My hoped-for scenario? Germany in the playoffs. (OK, aside from 0-1 in Belgrade Saturday.)

Meeeeeeeeerde! Allez!

By Laurie | October 7th, 2009 at 12:37 am

Gomis has been called up also.

Would you believe I’m worried about Faroe Islands? Not about a loss, but a draw would be killer to their chances, and they had trouble scoring against them last time and just eked out a 1-0. France so often has trouble with defensive teams, even if they’re minnows.

Hoping for another 6-0 like 2007, though.

Posted from United States

By Steven | October 7th, 2009 at 7:42 am

Here’s a must-read from Amy Lawrence, especially for the comments that follow:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/oct/07/raymond-domenech-france-world-cup

Posted from Canada

By Doumé | October 8th, 2009 at 10:39 am

I think the words “debacle” and all that stuff make no sense. It WAS a debacle for Serbia to play 80 mins at home up one player, with one free goal, one more substitution etc (plus the help of the ref). They got outplayed the vast majority of the game. They were much less good than Romania was comparatively. They might even have lost their direct pass because of that game in Belgrade. *IF* Romania and Lithuania are motivated, Serbia might be in much trouble and get away with only 2 points.

And yes, I go on record to say that France will beat the Feroe and Austria, who cares if it’s 1-0. Quit panicking, guys.

By jeff | October 8th, 2009 at 12:34 pm

Just in terms of the points total: two from six, when a full six were required to go to the top of the group, plus the stuff you mentioned.

Posted from United States

By Doumé | October 8th, 2009 at 2:22 pm

I would have panicked if they were the last two games. The last two games are coming up.

By Nice Li Hung | October 8th, 2009 at 3:11 pm

Sometimes during matches, and not the entirety of every match, but sometimes it’s painful to watch.

I find “debacle” to be putting it mildly.

No panache.

Doms has none.

Toodles needs to get stuck in.

Evra needs to get balls into the box.

Sagna has got to get his crosses past the first man.

Somebody needs to score a goal of two.

I must say that I agree with several points from the original author, including his lineup.

We can do it, guys. Come on! Chin up commenters. France can nick a point off Faroes, and depending on other matches, that could see us through to the playoff. Based on our form I would expect us to get hammered in the playoff, but something could change between now and then.

Did anybody read the post. He’s saying he wants to see some 7-0s. He’s the optimistic one.

The pessimists are the sad bastards with their Domenech voodoo dolls.

But Doume, is right. We need to all just smoke a bowl and chill.

Posted from United States

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