Updates on our French Boys at the Club Level

There’s a lot going on lately at the club level that could affect the France players, for good and bad. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s happening with our French guys that could affect their international play.

First, injuries. Julien Escudé gave up on league play and has returned to France for treatment of what is apparently a lingering groin injury. (One article gave us this title: “Escudé hamstrung by groin injury.” Hahaha. Get it! Hamstrung? Groin injury? Oh, never mind.)

Lassana Diarra has also missed time at Pompey recently with a thigh injury. Looks like he may miss the FA Cup final next weekend, but he might be better when we need him. (Which could work out better for France.) Stay tuned.

And perhaps most worrisome, Franck Ribéry didn’t play this weekend due to “douleurs musculaires.” One of those wonderful phrases that tells you absolutely nothing. We’re hoping for something NOT serious.

And Manchester United won the EPL title! Is that photo just the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen? And I hate ManU, too. But I love Patrice Evra.

I was looking at something ManU related the other day and also saw the names Mikaël Silvestre and Louis Saha. It’s funny, I’d almost forgotten they play there. Isn’t that sad? Especially Saha, who I really thought was going to be a factor in Euros.

But ManU are not done yet. There’s still the Champions League final on May 21. Against Chelsea, who have even more French players.

Chelsea theoretically had a chance to win the league right up until yesterday, but they were held to a 1-1 draw by Bolton. Claude Makélélé and Florent Malouda played, and neither was at their best. Nicolas Anelka couldn’t play because they botched his transfer with Bolton back in January. (What really happened is that Chelsea was playing a game of chicken with Bolton, hoping Gary Megson would come down off his 15 million transfer fee. Megson didn’t blink, and Chelsea had to rush the switch by sticking a loan into the deal, which meant that Anelka couldn’t play against his old team.) Who knows whether or not he could have made a difference in this game? He hasn’t exactly been playing well at Chelsea. From what I can tell, it’s largely because they’ve been wedded to 4-3-3 with Drogba as THE striker, so Anelka’s been forced to play out of position on the wing. (If you’re a regular read of this blog, you know how much this breaks my heart. LOVE Anelka.) Regardless, the title was ManU’s to lose, and they didn’t.

And this has nothing to do with the topic of this post, but here’s a fun Anelka article you might enjoy.

But now all three of the Chelsea boys are heading to the Champions League final in Moscow, which means two more weeks of possibilities for them too get injured before they head to international duty.

And it looks like Thierry Henry scored again this weekend for Barcelona. Does this make four in the last three games? I’m hoping he’s had a great rest this season on the bench, and injured, and as a sub, and is ready to come in and light things on fire for France.

Also off for more club duty are the boys from PSG and Lyon. Lyon is fighting it out till the bitter end in Ligue 1, with one more game to play and a tiny two-point lead over Bordeaux. And PSG is still struggling against relegation. That will be settled next weekend, and then the two teams are off for the French Cup final on May 24. French internationals involved for Lyon: Karim Benzema, Grégory Coupet, Jérémy Toulalan, François Clerc, Sidney Govou, Sébastien Squillaci, Jean-Alain Boumsong and Hatem Ben Arfa. And for PSG? Mickaël Landreau and Jérôme Rothen.

Also the 24th? Coppa Italia. Inter (Patrick Vieira) vs. AS Roma (Philippe Mexes. What do we think? Is Mexes going to be called up? I personally hope so. Especially is Escudé is out.)

And then once that’s done, they head into all of those South American friendlies: May 27 vs. Ecuador, May 31 vs. Paraguay, and June 3 against Colombia.

Stay healthy, boys!!!