Team News Roundup

November 29th, 2009 | by: Sarah |

Not to dwell on the play-off saga any longer, but I missed this story about Domenech fighting with Bixente Lizarazu(former Bordeaux, Bayern, Marseille and France defender) on the French National Radio minutes after beating Ireland. If you can’t understand the video, this article should help you understand what is going on. Interesting tidbits about Lizarazu: in 2001, he became the first player ever to hold both European and World titles simultaneously for both club and country (France and Bayern) and his lucky number is 69.

Please note: this may be updated throughout the week as short stories pop up…

Thanks to Doumé, Jeff and Jean-François for the heads up on the Aime Jacquet story. I’m in the process of working on a longer post about it which will hopefully be done soon, but feel free to discuss in the mean time.

France fails to have a single player make the Ballon D’or Shortlist (10 players). Four French players appeared in the original list of 28 players released on October: Gourcuff (Bordeaux), Henry (Barcelona), Benzema (Lyon and Real Madrid) and Ribery (Bayern Munich). France Football (the publication that runs the Ballon D’Or) explains itself here.
A Frenchmen has only won the award 6 times historically, but since Plantini won it 3 times only 4 French players total have won the award (Kopa, Plantini, Papin and Zidane). Anybody have any qualms?
French players were involved (on both sides) in a couple of high profile games this weekend. Henry and Abidal helped Barcelona beat Real Madrid’s Benzema and Lassana Diarra 1-0 in the Camp Nou Classico, moving Barcelona 2 points clear of Madrid at the top of the table. At the end of the second half, Diarra learned that you can’t just hack players down when you are frustrated– good lesson to learn before South Africa! At least Benzema was able to pull 3 virtual goals back to salvage some of Madrid’s honor.
Anelka and Malouda showed no mercy to their French teammates Gallas, Sagna, Traore (France espoirs) and Nasri in Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat at Emirates Stadium, moving Chelsea five points clear at the top of the table. Unfortunately, most of the French players received poor ratings by the Guardian, with Anelka being the obvious exception. Even the Belgian who scored the own-goal received a higher rating that the French players, though, I was glad to see Armand Traore get some first team action.

David Ngog’s (France espoirs) contributions helped Liverpool trounce former France player Louis Saha and uncapped Sylvain Distin’s Everton 2-0 in the Merseyside Derby, bringing Liverpool to within 2 points of Arsenal in 5th place.

If your club team lost, don’t kill the messenger– besides two of these situations were a win-win for the national team. Check The Offside team blogs for reviews and to direct your non-France related ranting and gloating
France’s Ligue 1 didn’t have any derbies this weekend, and the results for France’s domestic players were a mixed bag- a few good, some bad and a lot of blah. Mandanda saved a penalty against Lens, but it wasn’t enough to preserve a draw for OM when Lens scored a late goal. Moussa Sissoko and Gignac were only able to help Toulouse beat Boulogne (Ligue 1 whipping boy) 1-0 despite playing for 90 minutes– though Gignac delivered an awesome bicycle kick. Alou Diarra helped get Bordeaux back to their winning ways in a 3-0 crushing of Nancy. Yoann Gourcuff is still out with a groin injury. Lyon’s Cissokho, Lloris, Boumsong, Govou and Gomis had to settle with a 1-1 draw against Rennes. In PSG’s 1-0 defeat of Ligue 1 leaders Auxerre, former starting goalkeeper Gregory Coupet may have seriously injured his knee. Check out The Offside’s Ligue 1 blogs for more information on France’s domestic talent.
Given that France’s squad members play against each other so frequently, do you think they ever consider the national team when going in for a tackle? An interesting interview between Thierry Henry with Frank Leboeuf (former Chelsea, OM and France defender) from last summer sheds some light on the subject (skip to the 4:24 mark)…
Even though Domenech will only talk to the press about anything other than football, including his fondness for his “nomal life”, according to Benzema that is the only thing he will talk about with the team. Hmm, if Benzema wasn’t so historically honest, I might think he is trying to talk his way back into Domenech’s good graces (I kid, okay, I’m only kidding a little).
Sagna and Diaby are using the French team as a recruiting ground for Arsenal.
Blatter absolves Henry of any responsibility in the handball sage. Now that the all-mighty FIFA has spoken can we now move on? Or does this only further fuel the FIFA-France alliance conspiracy theories?
Arsenal’s Armand Traore (France Espoirs) has revealed he is set to undergo surgery. Don’t worry, he is waiting until the end of the season and its an elective surgery to remove a tattoo for religious reasons. Hmm, I wonder how he feels when he reflects on his time with Danielle Lloyd.
David Ngog receives support from a surprising source– Ireland’s Kevin Doyle. But, then again, he seems to be fairly level headed about these types of things.
Patrice Evra joins his Manchester United teammates in supporting UNICEF with his wife.
Just when I though FIFA had given us the green light to move on from this Henry handball saga, now they have announced they may sanction him and Blatter has now stated that touching the ball with your hands in football is the “highest crime”. Ugh, lack of consistency is my biggest sticking point with FIFA! But knowing FIFA, it will take so long for them to come to a decision that Henry will probably already be retired at that point. Apparently they are also considering allowing Ireland and Costa Rica in as teams 33 and 34 to the World Cup, having extra officials in the matches and changing the entire play-off set-up because of the drama not only with France/Ireland but also Algeria/ Egypt and Uruguay/Costa Rica. Any thoughts? Mine have too many four letter words to express right now.
Real Madrid starlet Karim Benzema was involved in a car accident at 2AM Monday morning after his team lost to Barcelona. Apparently, his car is badly damaged, but he was able to walk away from the accident. I feel a little guilty now for making fun of him earlier in this post.
Former France coach Henri Michel was fired today from his job in the Egyptian League. This is the second time he was fired this year (the first being from a South African league team). Michel is credited with guiding the French team to third place at the 1986 World cup. From third place at the WC with France to being fired from both an Egyptian AND South African league team. Oh how the mighty have fallen.