What a Dilemma: Too Much (Healthy) Talent Up Front

January 8th, 2007 | by: Laurie | Comments Off

If your team has to have a dilemma, this is not a bad one. It is SO good to finally see so many French players back in action after all the injuries they sustained towards the end of last year.

In the France-Greece friendly last November, the question was how Les Bleus were going to put any points on the board at all with so many strikers and attacking midfielders either wounded or out of form. (Benzema, Ribéry, Govou, Cissé, and Trézéguet were injured. Henry was too, but not admitting it yet, and Anelka hadn’t yet been able to hit his stride at Bolton.)

What a difference two months makes! Now the huge dilemma for Coach Domenech (assuming all our guys can stay fit and healthy and unsuspended) will be which of his strong players should not be called up for the Argentina friendly on Feb. 7, the Euro ‘08 qualifier against Lithuania on March 24, and the friendly with Austria on March 28.

An update on our guys:
–Thierry Henry took a much-needed few weeks off from Arsenal to recuperate from sciatica. He’s now played two games and scored in both.

–Nicolas Anelka scored seven goals in seven games at Bolton. (We’re still pretending that Liverpool game never happened, and Allerdyce rested him this weekend.) I am really looking forward to seeing more of this Anelka!

–How recovered is Djibril Cissé from last June’s leg break? Well, he scored a hat trick this weekend for Marseille. I’d say that’s pretty recovered.

–Nineteen-year-old Karim Benzema subbed in for Lyon this weekend for what I think was the first time since his November muscle tear. (I haven’t been able to find details yet. Any Lyon fans out there?) I’m hoping he’ll get his first chance to play for France after just missing out on the game with Greece.

–Franck Ribéry is finally playing again for Marseille after November’s groin injury. (You know, I have a hard time even typing that. Ouch!)

And then you have guys like Florent Malouda, who’s been strong all year. (But who for some reason didn’t play for Lyon this weekend. Googling “Malouda Injury” and “Malouda Suspension” isn’t turning up anything current. Anybody?)

And there’s always the possibility of Real Madrid’s nineteen-year-old Gonzalo Higuain, who turned down the France call-up in November. I’d be surprised to see him called up for the Argentina game after his France snub in November, but who knows? He is Argentinian. Domenech might want to try to make a point.

I’m also not sure about Sydney Govou. When I go back to old news, he scored for Lyon on Dec. 20, but he also didn’t play this weekend for Lyon and I’m not seeing why. What did they do, say, “Hey, Flo? Syd? You’ve been working hard. Take the weekend off! On us!”? Anybody? (Since my comments are still down, you can e-mail Bob, e-mail address: bob [AT] worldcupblog.com if you have info.) I’m also not sure what’s going on with David Trézéguet right now. He seems to have recovered from his injuries (?) but doesn’t seem to be playing at his best. Or maybe I’m wrong?? It’s kind of hard for me to stay on top of Serie B from where I’m at. And Louis Saha is questionable, currently battling a groin injury (again: ouch) but expected to be back in a couple of weeks.

And that’s not even considering the former players that Domenech seems to have soured on, like Ludovic Giuly and Robert Pires (who I think is still injured anyway.)(?)

Based on current play, here are my guesses for the Argentina friendly on Feb. 7:

Starters: Henry and Anelka, Malouda and Ribéry
Potential Subs: Cissé and Benzema, Govou and Wiltord
Out in the cold: Saha and Trézéguet (sigh), and Higuain

What do you think? (Let’s hope the @#$% comment spammers will cut it out soon so I can hear your thoughts.)

(P.S. I am still holding out a probably futile hope for my Anelka-Trézéguet pairing for one game this year. Am I delusional?)