Our France Boys By the (Jersey) Numbers

May 30th, 2008 | by: Laurie |

I’m just not sure I’ll be able to recognize Nicolas Anelka when he’s not wearing #39. I wonder if it will affect him?

What am I saying? You know he’s just thrilled to be in the tourney and not the one who had to wave goodbye to make room for Gomis.

A few of the boys have kept their standard numbers, like Eric Abidal and Florent Malouda. And Benzema is #9, which feels good. And I personally think Nasri should be #10, but instead it’s Govou.

Other than that? I’m orking to memorize these numbers and hoping we get to see them for many, many games in the next month.

1 Steve Mandanda
2 Jean-Alain Boumsong
3 Eric Abidal
4 Patrick Vieira
5 William Gallas
6 Claude Makelele
7 Florent Malouda
8 Nicolas Anelka
9 Karim Benzema
10 Sidney Govou
11 Samir Nasri
12 Thierry Henry
13 Patrice Evra
14 François Clerc
15 Lilian Thuram
16 Sébastien Frey
17 Sébastien Squillaci
18 Bafétimbi Gomis
19 Willy Sagnol
20 Jérémy Toulalan
21 Lassana Diarra
22 Franck Ribéry
23 Grégory Coupet
Coach: Raymond Domenech

Goalkeepers: Gregory Coupet (Olympique Lyon), Sebastien Frey (Fiorentina), Steve Mandanda (Olympique Marseille).

Defenders: Eric Abidal (Barcelona), Jean-Alain Boumsong (Lyon), Francois Clerc (Olympique Lyon), Sebastien Squillaci (Olympique Lyon), William Gallas (Arsenal), Patrice Evra (Manchester United), Willy Sagnol (Bayern Munich), Lilian Thuram (Barcelona).

Midfielders: Lassana Diarra (Portsmouth), Claude Makelele (Chelsea), Florent Malouda (Chelsea), Samir Nasri (Olympique Marseille), Jeremy Toulalan (Olympique Lyon), Patrick Vieira (Inter Milan).

Forwards: Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea), Karim Benzema (Olympique Lyon), Sidney Govou (Olympique Lyon), Bafetimbi Gomis (St Etienne), Thierry Henry (Barcelona), Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich).

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jeff

Long may Benzema have a run in that number 9 strip.
http://none Stasio

Italia – Camponi del mondo

we are the champs be scared…

Cammronessi-Toni-Di Natale

Del Piero n Cassano if needed with best defense in the world…………France is done Domenech is the worst.
Aditya

I don’t think the game on June 17th will come to penalties so you can forget all celebrations Stasio.
Tom

got to hope to see mandanda keeping that no. 1 jersey!! him and lloris are surely the future of french goalkeeping for the next 10 years at least, the two of them give me such hope & confidence that france will dominate world football (with the help of valbuena, nasri, ribery, benzema, ben arfa & gomis of course!!) really dissapointed that ben arfa, lloris & valbuena didn’t make it for the euros this summer though, RAY-RAY!!
Patrick

Why did Domenech change Toulalan’s number? 8 is perfect for him. He’s always worn that number for France so why change it? Same thing with Clerc, why change him from number 13?
http://lyon.theoffside.com Inara

For the Euros, the numbers have to be 1-23. So the players like Anelka, who had a number over 23, had to be given a new number. Since Anelka has more seniority than Toulalan, I guess he was given a choice. That or Toulalan volunteered to give it up. Because I can totally see that happening.

Interesting that Coupet prefers #23 to #1.
Benjamin

i would love to see nasri with 10.
but i bet samir didnt want it because its such a
burden to carry…he is not ready to asked to repeat
wut zizou did, not yet.
and ya, toulalan as number 20..WTF
http://senegal.worldcupblog.org Magnusson

Toulalan said he didn’t care about the number and wore 20, 17 and 28 at nantes. nasri said he’d wear anything but 10, benzema didn’t care and got 9. I think a lot of the youngsters don’t want to wear “heavy” numbers. As for choices, I think it’s all about seniority.