The List for Lithuania and Austria

The list is out, and Whoa! Some shockers here, folks. Coach Raymond Domenech seems to have decided that what he’s been doing isn’t working and is shaking things up a bit.

Four brand new players plus my favorite uncapped player, Karim Benzema. No David Trezeguet, no Alou Diarra. And less reliance on the sadly-tanking Olympique Lyonnais, with two new players from the EPL and the other two from other Ligue 1 teams.

Mickaël Landreau got the nod again as Coupet’s backup in goal despite PSG’s rather pathethic performance this year.

No real chnges in defense, although I would expect Philippe Mexes to get the nod as a substitute over Julien Escude and Sebastien Squillaci. Sadly, no Patrice Evra (LOVE Evra!), but I think I read a couple of days ago that he’s injured. With him gone, though, can somebody tell me who Abidal’s backup on the left is? Sagnol and Clerc play on the right, and I thought Mexes, Squillaci and Escude all preferred center? Are any of these guys left-footed? (I’d go research this myself, but I’m on vacation using a weird laptop with a browser I’m not used to, so getting around the web is tedious and time-consuming. This would also be why I’m not going back and putting accents in the French names.)

Midfield is where the big changes are. I think the average age just dropped by about five years. Arsenal’s young gun Abou Diaby, Chelsea’s nineteen-year-old sensation Lassana Diarra and Olympique de Marseille’s Samir Nasri are in. I’m not all that surprised by any of these guys. Diaby and Diarra both impressed the heck out of me in the games I’ve seen them in recently, and Nasri was one of the few bright spots for Marseille in a rather sad game I watched a couple of weeks back. I was a little surprised not to see Petit Zizou teen heartthrob Yoann Gourcuff on the list, since he’s gotten a lot of press recently. Do you think Domenech drops these red herrings intentionally so the actual list will get more coverage?

And in attack we have the usual suspects minus the injured Henry, Ribery and Saha. And, of course, minus Trezeguet. Instead we have Benzema and A.S. Monaco’s Frederic Piquionne. If you followed the drama in the January transfer window, Frederic was the guy everybody wanted whose team didn’t want to let him go. (Am I remembering a slavery quote? Let me go back and look that one up and get back to you.)

Here’s the complete list:

Goalkeepers
23 Grégory COUPET Olympique Lyonnais
1 Mickaël LANDREAU Paris SG

Défenseurs
3 Eric ABIDAL Olympique Lyonnais
13 François CLERC Olympique Lyonnais
21 Julien ESCUDE F.C. Seville
5 William GALLAS Arsenal F.C.
17 Philippe MEXES AS Rome
19 Willy SAGNOL Bayern Münich
18 Sébastien SQUILLACI Olympique Lyonnais
15 Lilian THURAM F.C. Barcelone

Midfielders
2 Abou DIABY Arsenal F.C.nouveau
4 Lassana DIARRA Chelsea F.C.nouveau
6 Claude MAKELELE Chelsea F.C.
14 Rio Antonio MAVUBA Girondins de Bordeaux
22 Samir NASRI Olympique de Marseille (new)
8 Jérémy TOULALAN Olympique Lyonnais

Attaquants
39 Nicolas ANELKA Bolton Wanderers
20 Karim BENZEMA Olympique Lyonnais
9 Djibril CISSE Olympique de Marseille
10 Sidney GOVOU Olympique Lyonnais
7 Florent MALOUDA Olympique Lyonnais
12 Frédéric PIQUIONNE A.S. Monaco (new)
11 Sylvain WILTORD Olympique Lyonnais