Comments on: Who’s In, Who’s Out for France

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:08:36 +0000

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.

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:48:33 +0000

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).

By: Laurie

Laurie — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:48:31 +0000

I really like the readers of this blog and your ability to work things out and discuss things intelligently without it getting out of hand. It’s so easy to misconstrue things in 2-D black and white.

Thank you for being great readers and commenters.

By: Marina

Marina — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:38:04 +0000

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

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:26:58 +0000

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.

By: princedesparcs

princedesparcs — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:10:16 +0000

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.

By: lefutur

lefutur — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:48:35 +0000

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.

By: sandrahn

sandrahn — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:50:13 +0000

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

By: sandrahn

sandrahn — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:49:19 +0000

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!

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:48:40 +0000

@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.