Spain-France — Open Thread

i dont see France scoring easily with this lineup. another drawn-out battle in the midfield i expect.

I agree, lefutur. This lineup (especially with Vieira-Makelele) kind of scares me with the stalemate possibilities it presents.

According to football365, the official lineup has Vieira and Makelele. Booo.

i hope ben arfa gets some time. he represents some adventurous attacking possibilties for me.

When somebody gets a stream up and running, can you let us know which one works? Thanks!

Govou hurt himself in warm up so Domenech is starting….Lassana Diarra instead. wtf??? why not ben arfa you idiot?!

the spanish are whistling over la marseillaise

Lefutur, where are you watching it?

i’m not…yet. i read that on eurosport

i just restarted the first media player link that kyle posted…seems to work

17634 on sopcast is playing, but terribly so.

You guys are going to have to tell me what’s happening. I’m getting a series of still shots and blank screens on both Sopcast and Media player.

Govou getting hurt again is bad news indeed. He just came back from injury.

Anelka just had a good chance, but I can’t tell with the crap quality or super dutchness if it was offsides or not

Here’s what one of the liveblogs said about it:

25′ REPRISE ANELKA !!!
Quelle occasion tricolore sur un centre de Toulalan dévié de la tête par Henry au premier poteau, Anelka reprend de volée derrière mais Casillas sort d’une superbe claquette le ballon de son but.

yeah that sounds about right. It’s a pretty wide open game right now, and very exciting.

Try this sopcast channel, Laurie. It takes a while to load, but it’s okay. Just don’t watch the game full screen though. The quality isn’t that great.

sop://broker.sopcast.com:3912/17634

And random factoid – France haven’t worn a red kit since 1906 after a 15-0 loss to England. Just great.

Okay, I’m happy now. The Sopcast stream started working at about 35 minutes, so I got to see the last ten minutes. A few thoughts, based, of course, on the ten minutes I saw:

– Does Anelka always play this far back in the midfield? This is the first time I’ve really noticed it.

– Ball movement doesn’t look too bad. But boys need to score!! Anelka’s looking better than Henry, so, were I Raymond, I’d sub in Karim for Titi.

– I am SO happy to see Willy Sagnol back!! He’s a little rusty, but I’m still more comfortable with him than with anybody else in that position.

– I’m glad to see Toulalan instead of Makelele.

– Am I listening to German or Dutch?

I did some research, its Norwegian…and I totally just won Keno.

Okay, now I’m hearing Norwegian.

And I do NOT understand why France doesn’t provide people outside the country with a legit way to watch this game. Why is every other friendly available for purchase somewhere but this one? They’re missing a huge opportunity.

France football is just so insular and have no one but themselves to blame about the unpopularity of their league.

/end bitterness

Why. The. Hell. Is he taking Anelka off instead of Henry?

Also, it’s so good to have Coupet back in goal. The man is unflappable. And Spain seems to have woken up this half. Not good.

He’s trying to make sure that Anelka lives up to his nickname, I guess. I’d be a little teed off if I was Nicolas…

France desperately need a more accurate fk taker. Malouda and Henry are no Juninho.

Okay, did anybody else just lose the stream? I hate having to rely on pirate broadcasts.

I lost mine too. I’m attempting to reload

Okay, back to the liveblogs. They’re saying that things seem to be getting a bit testy. Three yellows in ten minutes. And when did Escude come in?

And when did Escude come in?
IIRC he replaced Thuram right at the beginning of the 2nd half.

Yeah, that’s what I’m seeing in the liveblog now. It’s hard to tell when you’re just watching little red fuzzies chase a disappearing tiny white fuzzy around the screen.

Well, crap. 1-0 espagne

Shit. Spain scored?

S!@!@# Joan Capdevila just scored for Spain.

Off a corner. HATE set pieces. We just don’t defend well against them.

On to the next match, where Dom will surely find some other innovative way to stifle our attack into a coma

Okay, now Ben Arfa’s coming on for Vieira.

Ben Arfa for Vieira. About freakin’ time.

btw, many thanks, Laurie, for providing us with this forum of sorts to commiserate about les bleus. Till the next time!

Couldn’t make the links work.

Corners! Argh. I’m seing ghosts of Materazzi.
At least I think Raymond is superstitious, so maybe we’re rid of the red kit.

Dommage.

Sigh.

Here’s the goal…

http://www.zshare.net/video/7261263e769e37/

trezegol anyone?

Thanks, Kyle. I thought the liveblog said it was off a corner. That doesn’t look like a corner, unless it was a short one?

MB, I’m wondering if we don’t have more problems than Trezegol can fix.

(I SO wish I could have seen this game in a meaningful way. I really have no clue what/who the issues were.)

I completely agree that the lack of a feed is a disgrace. What channels do fellow readers have access to? I have Fox Soccer Channel, Setanta, and TV5 (no GolTV). TV5 is often a good bet to have France friendlies, but I remember not having access to a previous Spain-France friendly (blasted protectionists).

I’ve never had any luck with Sopcast et al. streams. As a matter of self-preservation, I’ve long since given up trying.

Kyle – Thanks for the link to the goal. Maybe the Fox Soccer Report will have more highlights.

Even with a good feed, analysis isn’t nearly as much fun for a friendly.

Laurie,
Dailymotion has already several videos in this page:
http://www.dailymotion.com/search/france+espagne/1
and even has large chunks of 15mn or so.

But look at this:
http://www.dailymotion.com/search/france+espagne/video/x4ao66_transversale-de-benzema-et-ratage-d_extreme
A beauty from Sagnol to Benzema which hits the bar and Titi misses, the score could have been different.

Oh, and apparently La Marseillaise was whistled again. “Friendly”, eh?

Doume’s right – those Daily Motion clips are pretty good. You lot are fantastic at finding highlights online. So the game was on TF1, but they couldn’t be bothered to send a feed across the pond. That game should be on tape-delay in prime-time on TV5.

With Henry, Anelka, and Benzema, the strikers up front should just about be sorted. I say why not have Trezeguet as the fourth striker. I’ve been really down on performances for France for the last few years, but his record in Italy can not be overlooked.

I really like Domenech compared to Lemerre and Santini, but persisting with Abidal, for me, when Evra looks like a better option, is a Lemerre move.

Okay, so the Moroccans booed because they’re a former colony. Italians booed because, well, it’s Italy. What’s Spain’s excuse?

No excuse. Nobody really likes France

Fred, I shouldn’t laugh at your comment. But I did.

It’s funny — when I’m in France, I can’t wait to go home. When I go home, I can’t wait to go back. What’s up with that?

P.S. I love France. But I love their national football team more.

I guess it’s different when you have something to come home to. Me, I don’t feel more at home than when I’m in France.

Hence me quitting my lucrative job and applying to teach English there for a year.

France me manque bcp.

Kyle, before you go you absolutely need to read the series by Stephen Clarke that starts with “A Year in the Merde.” I bought my copy in the de Gaulle airport and spent the entire flight home giggling hysterically while trying not to giggle because there were Frenchmen on either side of me. It captures a foreigner’s view of France so perfectly!!

No excuse. Nobody really likes France
I’m still not making the connection between not liking a country and booing its anthem (as opposed to penning a bestseller about it and getting the French to pay you to read it), but apparently I’m just humor-impaired…

Maybe they’re backing their racist coach Arragones.

Laurie, I have read all of them except for ‘Merde Actually’ and they are amazing. I own ‘Talk to the Snail’ and ‘In the Merde for Love’, which I read during my last trip there. Definitely helped (at least ‘Talk to the Snail’) for some reason French women are less than open, while Frenchmen will gladly speak to me. C’est comme ça…the thing you want the most is always the hardest to get lol.

Glatisant, I’m apologizing here!! I just realized that what I said probably came across as a snub to you after your comment. It wasn’t. I actually forgot that the “hating France” comment was a result of the “national anthem” comment. (It was a long day yesterday.)

I always believe that booing/whistling anybody’s national anthem is completely inappropriate and shows an utter lack of class on the part of whoever does it. I just found it hysterical that somebody would come to a forum of people who obviously love France and say, “Nobody likes France.” Um…yeah…well… We do.

And then I started thinking, “I do love France! Although there are times when I’m being snubbed by snooty waiters, or snooty ticket takers, or snooty train passengers who’ve taken all of the luggage rack space and want to glare me out of existence for having a suitcase…” Yes, it happens everywhere, but in France it’s an art. And I actually kind of respect that, and accept it as part of the country along with great wine and the spectacular paintings in the Musee d’Orsay.

Which is NOT to say that there are not wonderful French people, because there are, absolutely. It’s just that in general France is a tough nut for an outsider to crack. And yet I love it.

The books I recommend capture the conflict and difficulties of an outsider in France perfectly, and in a hysterically funny (yet more or less respectful and loving) way. A lot of French people love them. They sell them in the airport. I didn’t find them particularly disrespectful, just fiercely observant (and imaginative), warts and all.

Again, if I offended you with my flippant-ness, I’m so sorry! Like I said, it was a long day.

I know about some of that snootiness, Laurie, but as you say not everyone’s like that and also, given time, that snootiness usually goes away. In the mid-90s I taught English in Paris for two months and totally won my skeptical students over when they saw that I had none of that ugly American arrogance and ignorance about the world, that I came to France having tried hard to brush up on my French and be aware of the contemporary French political and cultural landscape…in other words, that I didn’t conform to their stereotype about the clueless American. Also being Brazilian and a New Yorker did help — they love New York. They were a wonderful bunch of students of all ages and they remain my friends to this day.

BTW, booing the opposition’s national anthem is a very common thing now. English fans do this all the time. They booed the Swiss national anthem last night, they booed the Brazilian and German anthems last year, they routinely boo every single opposition their national team faces.

And to Fred — I do like the French so f–k off!

BTW, if anyone’s interested, here’s a masterful deconstruction of the twisted obsessions and hypocrieis of the Anglo/American media in their treatment of France:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/2/17374/18076/11/448496

I haven’t read the Stephen Clarke “Merde” series. I did read the first couple books in the Peter Mayle “Provence” series. There’s a section in one of Bill Bryson’s books about visiting France that was quite good. It’s just a chapter or two, so it doesn’t pose a big time commitment, and might be worth looking for in your local library. I’m pretty sure the book I’m remembering is “Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe” by Bill Bryson.

Kyle – there’s a section in the same Bryson book about how he and his friend Katz approach girls. It’s of absolutely no practical use, but I remember it being good for a laugh.

Yes, I think booing the anthem (sorry for starting this BTW, Laurie!) is really saying more about the public than about the nation booed. I was actually proud of the respectful silence accompanying the Italian anthem in Sept 06 in Paris.
BTW one of the most stingingly sad moments for me was a France-Algeria friendly maybe 1 week after Sept 11. The minute of silence in honor of the victims was raucous, the Marseillaise was booed, and Zidane also, who left early. And that was in Paris. The bad history of colonialism I guess.

Oh well I think for people to unerstand things better, I recomend people to visit
http://www.superfrenchie.com
which, through all kinds of topics, from silly to serious, explains things about us and our relationship with all things American. The faces, the tones of voice, the body language can be also a cultural thing, not something personally directed at you. In fact I have heard the kindest, sweetest things said in a tone of voice that could have sounded snooty.
Ah Kyle, French women are just something else

But Laurie, to come back to the game: Titi, Raymond, Vieira and the others seem to be very satisfied about what the game was like (even Henry saying in l’Equipe that they could have won). Didn’t you love that ball from Sagnol to Benz? What a “caviar” (cf French 101)

Laurie,
I absolutely was not offended by what you said, and I’m sorry my tone came across that way. In fact, I was sitting there thinking that I wish I could laugh at Fred’s comment—which was amusing, in a somewhat non sequitur-ish way—as you have done, but I couldn’t.

The books I recommend capture the conflict and difficulties of an outsider in France perfectly, and in a hysterically funny (yet more or less respectful and loving) way. A lot of French people love them. They sell them in the airport.
Yes, I’ve read the recommendations on your other blog some time ago (here revealing my cyber-stalking ways), hence the comment about getting the French to pay for the books you write about them. For what it’s worth, here is a fascinating discussion on the word “insolence,” as it was used in the article you mentioned in your post.

BTW, booing the opposition’s national anthem is a very common thing now.
Is it? English supporters have a reputation that precedes them, unfortunately, so I can’t say I’m really surprised, coming from them. But how common is this sort of behavior elsewhere?
See, when something like this happens, I feel like I have to find some sort of rationale or “trigger” that explains that sort of response. For the English, the fan culture has become its own explanation, whether that’s fair or not.
So what was Spain’s reasoning? The fact that the only match they’ve won against France within the past 25 years was in 2001, in yet another meaningless friendly? That Henry “dove” in the WC match against them, and had earlier allowed their selectionneur to make a fool out of himself in the international press? That the French have too many black players for their tastes?

And yes, I am taking this way too seriously. It’s been a long week here, too.

Thanks for the link, Doumé.

My opinion on the French national anthem question. I think it’s two-pronged. Some people hate the team because it’s a reflection of French society, and some hate it because it isn’t.

By that I mean those who perceive the team as French and the French as arrogant probably whistle. And those who view the team as too black (and thus not French enough) will also. They can’t win, and thus get double the abuse of other countries because people who hate them do so for opposite reasons.

Getting back on topic also, does anyone have l’Equipe’s player ratings for the match? Here’s the one from Football365, fwiw:

France
Coupet : 5,5
Sagnol : 5,5
Thuram : 7
(Escudé, 46eme : 5,5)
Gallas : 6
Abidal : 5
Vieira (cap) : 4,5
(Ben Arfa, 82eme)
Toulalan : 4
L.Diarra : 4,5
Malouda : 4
Anelka : 5
(Benzema, 60eme)
Henry : 4,5

Espagne
Casillas (cap) : 6
Sergio Ramos : 5
(Angel, 46eme : non noté)
(puis Juanito, 75eme)
Albiol : 5
Marchena : 5
(Pablo, 46eme : 5)
Capdevila : 5
Albelda: 4,5
(Xabi Alonso, 63eme)
Xavi: 6
Iniesta : 5,5
Fabregas : 4,5
Riera : 4
(Villa, 46eme : 4,5)
Torres : Non noté
(Güiza, 24eme : 4)

glatisant, I’m entirely in agreement, I detest fans who boo any nat’l anthem. And you’re right about the English fan culture — many English fans themselves don’t go to int’l games because they detest their compatriots who behave like idiots.

The Spanish? There are a lot of racist fans in Spain (yes, yes, I know, so do other countries). Did you hear about that recent fracas in Spain with the auto racing champion Hamilton? Spanish fans came wearing black face and guerrilla suits and made with the monkey chants. Charming.

No national team on the planet is as victimized with this kind of racist hate than the French NT. Wherever they go, they hear this kind of thing. Spain’s ultras are like Italy’s ultras — they’re highly organized and they verbally assault black players all the time. I think a lot of Spanish fans just can’t get past France’s frequent victories over them and the fact that in their eyes the French team is comprised of inferior black players. Those were the fans who booed, I’m sure.

(Tho to their credit, zizou remains incredibly popular in Spain — I’ve met Spanish fans who hate Real Madrid but while zizou was playing for them they’d say “I hate Real Madrid — except zidane.” During the entire zidane-bashing episode that came out of the wc final, outside of France, it was Spain that almost uniformly remained supportive of him).

The Spanish fans also booed the English nat’l anthem when they played England last year, btw. Both sets of fans competed in being idiots.

Neither glatisant or Doume nor anyone else should apologize for feeling offended — I’m not even French but I deeply, passionately detest mindless, bigoted France-bashing and I do take offense at it.

And I regularly visit superfrenchie.com.

“those who perceive the team as French and the French as arrogant probably whistle. And those who view the team as too black (and thus not French enough) will also. They can’t win, and thus get double the abuse of other countries because people who hate them do so for opposite reasons.”

Exactly, well said.

As to all those anglo-written books about living in France and living with those funny, crazy, difficult frenchies, check out this blog posting from the Guardian:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/02/bad_french_english_writers_abr.html

As per l’Equipe’s player ratings it doesn’t look like the midfield lit things up. When exactly do their spots come under any type of scrutiny?When do they start worrying about future call ups? The Trezeguet thing has been an ongoing issue but so has midfield’s mediocrity.