Who’s In, Who’s Out for France

like everyone i find some defaults with this list…
but in the end, we all need to stop bitching about RD’s selection
cuz Domenech spends his 40 hours studying each player
according to each player’s ability, teamworkness, attitude…
unlike us who support the team. Domenech is a master strategist
and did what is best for the team to go to the finals.
in wc2006, i remember everyone criticizing his picks of chimboda
govou and others over ppl like pires and guily.
but in the end, he got us a great tournament which could have turned out
to make us champions if not for some bad luck.

Not to add any water to Michel-Olivier’s mill but I find the idea of dual-nationals being forced to play for their country of origin intriguing. Imagine Algeria with Nasri, Benzema and Zidane (back in the day), Senegal with Gomis, Viera and Niang, etc… This would make the world cup much more interesting to follow and put an end to the Euro/Brazil/Argentina domination. In the present configuration of the French NT, it would give us the following.

Out

Viera
Makelele
Gomis
L. Diarra
Benzema
Nasri

In

Bodmer
Flamini
Valbuena
Briand
Savidan (he’s the only other striker I can think of right now)
Menez (maybe)

The defense is pretty much unchanged. The midfield is much more interesting, with skill players replacing athletic players (Nasri excepted). The only area that would really suffer IMO are the strikers.

It’s also very wasteful of talent when you think of all the good dual-national players who will rarely get to play for France but would be starters for their country of origin.

That means Trezeguet ought to be playing for Argentina.

Trezeguet is actually ethnically French, though. He only trained in Argentina.

Isn’t his father part Argentine though?

Yes and no. Yes, as in, he’s an Argentine citizen, I think, no as in he isn’t ethnically Argentine, he is descended from French immigrants there (similar to how Racing in Argentina have a French influence due to immigrants, I think).

Hmmm, I should clarify the “he” in the post above describes Trezeguet’s dad, not Trezeguet. That’s what makes Trez different from Higuaín, as Higuaín is ethnically Argentine, I think.

In any case, I’m contributing to this continuing line of thought out of interest only. It is my personal belief that those of dual nationalities should be treated the same as all the others in terms of Les Bleus. Even though, interestingly enough, I do think Domenech has a preference for those of African descent. I also think, to an extent, that part of this has to do with his experience in Espoirs, where as a consequence of FIFA (who have stated one has until his 21st birthday to decide between nationalities), he could have thrown the dual-African guys into the mix if he believed they could be valuable in years ahead (it also could explain the Higuaín situation, especially then when he was being linked with big clubs across the continent).

Anyway, to get back on topic, one of my buddies was pointing out how good the “excluded” French team is.

Trezeguet
Ménez Bodmer Ben Arfa
Flamini A. Diarra
Clichy Escudé Mexès Sagna
Landreau

Flamini’s father is Italian, born in Roma … There goes that *&#@ing midfield! Put another way, this entire debate should have had its day, long ago. But … Although Ben’s proposition has got a modicum of intrigue, who’s to decide how far back you trace heritage? (I don’t get the “ethnicity” part, considering that the French, like most “nationalities,” are bastards and mutts – & I don’t mean that pejoratively at all. Consider Brazil and Argentina, to take just two heady instances football-wise. Ben and Seb, your propositions becomes very problematic with regard to those two nations, no?)

So, what is a “country of origin”? Is someone born, raised and schooled on an American air base in the Philippines, for instance, Filipino or American? And besides all that, there’s something disturbing about knowing that a person is being “forced” to play for one country rather than another. It comes down to this: Each who had the opportunity to play for either Argentina/Senegal/Congo/etc or France made a choice at some point. And while you can argue that France has the better pedigree, training, schooling, etc, it has, for those same reasons, more competition for nat’l team slots. All who chose France took their chances, and some, you can readily reason, not so smartly.

I, and I hope like most posting or reading here, will cheer when players from an African, Asian or Scandinavian nation raise the Jules Rimet. I just want to get my rocks off watching grown men have a sublime, even beautiful go on the green grass of, yes, another country; in this case, and I hope for better, Osterreich or la belle Suisse. One way and/or the other, I will scream with joy or curse with discontent for a month, and look forward to more of same two years hence. For now, suffice it to say … Allez les (noires/blancs/jaunes/rouges – j’men fous) Bleus!

Thanks for your hard work over the last few, Laurie. Though, despite your misgivings, I’m looking for Vieira to have an awesome June. Except for two or maybe three exceptions (Flamini for Diarra; Clichy for Abidal; and a healthy MXS for Boumsong), I think RD’s squad is solid. More than than, it appears to have a cohesiveness akin to ‘98. But the key to the group is three points against Romania.

Posted from  United States

No offense, princedesparcs, though I don’t know why you’re throwing me into the discussion. As I stated in my post, I totally support those who have dual nationalities as much as anyone else as I am of dual nationalities myself. I assume that you misunderstood the post?

In any event, as much as I want France to do well, I’ve had it up to here with Raymond. It’s not that I would want a Santini or Lemerre again either, it’s that I am sick of having some of our best footballers excluded due to personal bias. Nevertheless, I think our team is good enough as is to be very competitive this summer, but if I could have it my way, we’d win, though while attempting to grab the trophy, Domenech would collapse, though straight into Estelle’s (ample) bosom, then he’d have the epiphany that caring over *that* is better than selecting our national team.

I can’t believe I typed that, but I did.

Seb,

I brought you into the discussion on reading the “ethnically French” allusion re Trez. Apologies for taking that out of context given your follo post.

Posted from  United States

Oh it’s alright, buddy, been a tough day, that’s all (especially as I’ll admit I’m very pro-Mexès). Hmmm, I actually think that your post is quite correct, and I especially agree that the match against Romania is very important. I doubt it will come out like this, but a starting XI I would be happy to see:

Henry Benzema
Malouda Nasri Ribéry
Vieira
Evra Abidal Gallas Sagnol
Frey

Of course, this won’t happen as Coupet is the guaranteed starter (and he deserves it, even if I believe Frey is better), Thuram appeared quite good against Ecuador (but I have a fear he could turn into the Desailly of the Euro before in Portugal), and we know Domenech will almost certainly have his 2 defensive midfielders. Though if it were me, I’d choose to attack, and not only on the flanks, which is why Nasri’s in there.

how did mexes not make this team! i cant believe it. boumsong is a joke he barely plays for a lyon defense that is not very good to begin with. Mexes is the backbone of roma and played very well this year especially in the CL! domenech is a douche. trezeguet is another example, put the quarreling to the side and select the best players you can for the better good. he had 20 goals this year in serie A and looked like he was in peak fun. i wanna see france get shit kicked now so domenech gets canned because he has the competence of a 5 year old

Posted from  Canada

Um, just to clarify I never brought up the issue of ethnicity. I guess I was mostly trying to think of a way to avoid wasting (at the national team level) the massive amount of talent that comes out of the Clairefontaine/French club youth system. France could be up there with Brazil as the largest exporter of soccer talent in the world.
Also, the comment about Brazil/Argentina some other poster made didn’t make sense to me. My comment was about how many nationalities you have, not your ethnic pedigree. Like most sane people, it doesn’t matter to me what a player’s ethnicity is.

Posted from  United States

Huge respect to princedesparcs for his fantastic post. I was going to post the same sort of thing but he got there before me, and said it better than I could.

“It comes down to this: Each who had the opportunity to play for either Argentina/Senegal/Congo/etc or France made a choice at some point. And while you can argue that France has the better pedigree, training, schooling, etc, it has, for those same reasons, more competition for nat’l team slots. All who chose France took their chances, and some, you can readily reason, not so smartly.”

There are also plenty of players who choose NOT to be part of the French team in favor of their African “country of origin” even tho that may mean playing for a country with fewer resources than France. Freddy Kanoute chose Mali over France. Didn’t Drogba choose Ivory Coast over France too?

What infuriates me are those ignorant racists who see black players on the French NT and shout “that’s not France, that’s Africa!” Doesn’t to matter to these idiots if those black players were born and raised in France, or that they emigrated to France as toddlers and were raised, educated and trained there–they can never be “authentically” French to these idiots! Vieira does feel attachment to Senegal but he emigrated to France at the age of 8, has visited Senegal only twice since then as an adult (for brief visits) and doesn’t speak the native tribal language at all. He’s been raised, educated, trained in France–that’s the country he’s spent most of his life in.

Then there are players who genuinely adopt a country even at a later age but they’re never seen as “authentic”–the only thing that matters to the morons of the world is where they were born. Arsenal’s Eduardo da Silva gets the same crap. He left Brazil at the age of 15 for Croatia to play club football, developed a genuine attachment to Croatia, speaks the language fluently, married a Croatian, and is now on their NT. He says he wants to return to Croatia in his later life and retire there. He cheers for Croatia ahead of Brazil now. It’s true he couldn’t get on the Brazilian NT but it’s not as if he tried very hard either.

Posted from  United States

@sandrahn: Wow! That was a flame if I ever saw one. I will try not to stoop to your level and start insulting people for no apparent reason. However, I would like to point out that you seem to have missed the central point of the discussion: namely what would be most entertaining from a soccer fan’s perspective. Now before I start explaining this in more detail I would like to point out 2 things:

1) I realize the proposition I put forward a few posts back is not workable. It is merely a way to get people to consider how good some of the African teams could have been if so many of their young talent wasn’t gobbled up by France.

2) I realize that Viera, Makelele, etc… are just as French as anybody else and I fully support their right to represent their country on the soccer field if that’s what they want to do. BTW, Viera is my favourite player on the French NT (and I have French citizenship so I support France before any other team).

So again, the idea was not about racism but about how to make the World Cup more entertaining. My main point was that France might not loose so much because there is a wealth of talent in the youth system over there whereas some African teams (Senegal and Algeria most readily come to mind) would have a lot to gain. This would in turn increase the level of competition in the tournament.

The only African team I can think of that managed to keep most of their talent was Nigeria during their golden generation (Okocha, Kanu, Yekini, West, etc… I remember them fondly) and they won the Olympics and did very well in 1998. I just wish there were more teams like them.

So do us all a favor next time amd take the time to actually read the posts before you get on your high horse.

Thanks a bunch.

Posted from  United States

Ben, that post was NOT aimed at you!!! That was no flame! I wasn’t even thinking about your original post at all when I typed what I wrote. Nothing which you said implies the kind of attitude I complained about. So please calm down!

Posted from  United States

And btw, I DID read your posts (all of them) very carefully and found nothing wrong with them.

Posted from  United States

i don’t have much of a problem with this list. i think Domenech has guts to take Gomis over Cissé and Mandanda over Landreau. I would have liked to have seen Ben Arfa play in the Euro but he does have some flaws in his playing still despite all his talent. I’m thrilled that Nasri is going, I expect him to do some good things..if he plays. Boumsong has played very well this season at Lyon and has a lot of confidence. I am OK with his inclusion. Flamini doesn’t have enough experience with Les Bleus yet so its kind of a good idea for him to wait until the WC. And Mexes is injured so its a bit of a risk.

Ben,

Truly no harm meant. As I said, I found your suggestion intriguing. But I sense it’s problematic, namely in that “origin” is a slippery notion that can’t help but veer off into questions of race and ethnicity. And those are territories fraught with menace and hazard. In fact, I would argue that on the Continent, those obstacles have so far helped defer greater African success at the WC. That being said, I thought sandrahn’s initial posting today thoughtful and decidedly devoid of malice or even insult.

Posted from  United States

I apologize for my reaction. It seems I didn’t understand the intent of sandrahn’s post. I hope no harm is done and that there are no hard feelings.

Posted from  United States

But still, they have no chance against … ROMANIA!!!
Look here, the whole Switzerland trebles http://www.gsp.ro/stire/cum-ii-vad-elvetienii-pe-tricolori-71159.html

Posted from  Switzerland

Yes! and what’s more, what makes you French or Craotian, or whatever in sport, besides your passport, is the system that made you a player. Here, anyone who is the product of the french academy system has legitimacy to play for the NT, whether it was Clairefontaine or Auxerre, or Monaco! Tht’s how you measure the true level of a nation- not with the billion-worth clubs that steal younger players like Engliand (look where they are now).

Posted from  Australia

I feel that these players represent France in an excellent way. I think that as a supporter of France you must support your team regardless of skin color or ethnicity or whatever. I mean these guys are willing to sweat and bleed to ensure that France gets the gold and that is commendable. However one thing that troubles me is that sometimes I feel that they are looking to other places more for talent than they are in France. I don’t want a French born player’s chance at playing at a major tournament for France to be taken away by foreign talent. With that said I also feel if you have the chance to bring in a foreign player who is the next best thing go for it. Also we must understand why some people feel so harshly against non-white players playing for France. Though as one of you said, French people are really mutts, they are still a mxture of european ethnicities. My point being that most of France’s population is white and therefore when they see that most of the players are black or non white of course they are not going to be happy. Unfortunatley they get racist when they shouldn’t. But come on people all I know is that if 20 of these players were white and only three were minorities the other side would be crying foul.

Posted from  United States