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I know he gets mocked for them often, but I love Domenech’s glasses. Anybody know where he gets his frames? Seriously.

FRANCE team ??? LOL . Senegal !!! ))

Domenech is a fool for leaving out trezeguet, ben arfa, and clichy.
where is astrology when you need it?

The draw is what I had expected.

Also, it was the same situation after the first 2006 WC match.

If Netherlands wins against Italy, and we beat them. All it’s OK.

@ yaz
france play astrology, however the dutch play total football, so fuck off

Michel-Olivier, keep cool. We will see that next friday.

In France, we like when people talk too much before the game.

van Basten’s Dutch team does NOT play total football — everyone who’s paid attention to his teams knows that. The Dutch haven’t played total football in a long time. Read the Dutch press, for heaven’s sake. However they’re full of talent and I’ve always wanted them to win more trophies than they have. Fantastic result to see them beat Italy.

@ yaz
“France have good players but perhaps they have a couple of players who have got older. They are experienced players but perhaps they have got tired of playing in these final tournaments.”(Piturca)
without zizou france is crap, no attacking flair. barely qualified for the euro.

@ sandrahn
we played marco version of total football aka total bastenball

I’m still in shock over the France’s play. I was expecting that the recent performance was just the case of experimenting during friendlies but they lacked any sort of creativity and obviously sorely lacking in the leadership of Zizou. It will be interesting to see how they adjust in the next match.

The France team problem is deeper. Since Jacquet, and more since Domenech the team has an all defensive mentality. you can’t win a match without take any risk. Who is able to shoot at goal or to make creative pass and score in France that Domenech have choosen nowadays : Malouda no even in your dreams, Sagnol (pass when he is on top), Abidal what ???, Thuram ???, Makelélé each Santa claus day, Toulalan with 10 selection not really, Gallas, i joke, Coupet May be, Anelka few ones if he had a link with the player, but each time he play with different players, Benzema same, Henry, remember the last time you said Henry is great. Only Ribery in fact but with France he should be right back most of the time and didn’t have enough lucidity to create the game. There is no secret Domenech selected a lot of defensive and physical players not a lot creators. I wonder if France work on offensive schema, seriously i think no.

This game was about as bad as could be, though on the bright side, we could be in a worse situation had we lost and had a goal difference of -3. As many of you know, I am no supporter of Domenech and I was wondering during the game whether he’d bring on Lassana Diarra for Benzema. However, keep in mind we also played our worst game at WC 2006 in our debut against Switzerland. Thus, there is reason to be optimistic, but if a Diarra-Vieira-Maké-Toulalan midfield comes out against the Dutch, I will start looking for Didier Deschamps.

@ seb
i agree

Yes, but then we had korea and .. Togo. Now it’s Holland and Italy. We have to be a little bit more speed in our warm up.

True, although after that we had a stretch of Spain, Brazil and Portugal, so I believe after today everyone knows what’s at stake. Henry and Vieira, 2 world, as well as European, champions, know how to win these important matches. I do think their impact will be seen, especially that of Henry, who will be set to have a better performance than Anelka today.

this is the last time im going to say it, french suck withot zizou. today ribery played wing back, anelka was a ghost, gomis sub was base on astrology, toulalan is a copy of makelele, malouda and sagnol = rubbish, the team suck. i can see a 2002 for france. if was president of FFF i would give Laurent Blanc a call.

I didn’t actually think Malouda was bad at all, he did well enough on the ball when he actually had it. I thought we should have attacked more on that side, it appeared to be causing better opportunities than on the right.

The strikers didn’t bother holding up the ball for France because they knew they would get very little support from the central midfielders. Also Abidal and Sagnol didn’t provide much going forward. It’s almost as if they were playing for a tie. I really loved the Nasri for Benzema sub at the end. Absolutely brilliant stuff from Domenech, changed the game completely…

It was disappointing to tie the team considered to be the underdogs in our group, just like seb said it could have been worst, all we have to do now is to kick the italians behinds and atleast tie holland. Am confident we will bounce back with a little adjustment though.i would play makalele or toulalan not both at the same time, i think we missed viera in the middle for that link between midfield and the forward,i think anelka should come from the bench, benzima should get more playing time, evra should play left back his defence and attack is better than abidal by far. bottom line…we need to be a little more attac minded.

Yes Evra for Abidal, Goivu for Malouda, Flamini for the clueless, unimaginative Toulalan! Ribery please dig a lot harder.
Benzema we know you’re good now show the rest of the world.

this game was so bad, my dad, a french fan, had just officially stopped supporting france, especially coupled by dismal performances during friendlies. by the time the kick-off started and they set the realllyyy slow pace, suddenly i realised that the game could end in a really horrible goalless draw. for a team that many pundits described as “always looking to attack”, the ball was mostly played in the midfield as if france was reluctant to start playing offense. i think domenech could have subbed anelka for gomis/nasri earlier to try reverse the situation, but i guess the problem lies deeper than that–by that, i mean the midfielders (except ribery–he was probably the only spark in the entire squad).