Who is the French Football Federation sending to the corner?

when is the ligue 1 talk podcast coming out? PS Ribery is a douche

I'm expecting to see a year ban from the French National team.

Far as I'm concerned, Ribery, Abidal, Evra and Gallas should never go anywhere near the national team again. And it hurts to say that about Ribery, I've been such a massive fan of his. I can forgive Toulalan and the rest. And honestly, it's less the strike issue (which was bad enuf) but this bullshit clique crap in which the above players led some kind of bullying cabal against Gourcuff, and also their seeming attempt to bully and pressure their wishes on the younger players. There were no genuine leaders among them, no attempt to foster a sense of team cohesion and unity except in a swaggering, bullying way. In 2006, there was also division/disagreement with the manager in the dressing room — so 2 strong, experienced leaders (Zidane & Thuram) emerged plus 2 strong deputies (Vieira & Makelele) and they were able to wrest control in a way that brought team unity and cohesion, plus cooperation and assent from the manager. They were leaders who put the team first.

Not this crowd.

Oh really… This is just… Ridiculous.

Toulalan didn't write the press release. His agent did. He didn't “out himself”, because it would have very, very quickly come to light with the investigation by the FFF. It was just a choice between owning up or waiting for the FFF to uncover it. Either way, it would have wrecked his image as one of the “good guys”. Coming forth on his own wasn't any more interesting than Abidal saying why he had told Domenech he didn't want to play against South Africa.

The FFF is a sham (nothing new there), and this decision is just… The summum. Thuram should be ashamed. For an intelligent man, he sure has put his blinkers on with this case. Evra, Ribéry and Abidal should have told the rest of the squad Anelka had an opportunity to present excuses? Did Domenech become mute or something? What about the rest of the staff? What about J-P Escallettes who was in front of the damned bus the whole time? Oh yes, I remember, Evra was the captain, Ribéry the “vice-captain” and Abidal was ??? so their role in South Africa was to manage the team. Or something like that.

Domenech, his team, the FFF's people on the ground and working with the players all failed hard. The players did stupid things, but I don't see any particular reason to single out these five any more than five of the coaches/staff in the FFF. Evra was the captain, and he did what a good captain does : represents the team to the staff, in particular the manager and the press. The whole team disapproved of Anelka's eviction, the whole team wanted (needed) to know who had leaked the info, and the whole team agreed to strike. It's not pretty to see the captain telling the coach the team isn't going to train, but that is the captain's role. Anelka should have curbed his temper, but the leak wasn't acceptable for the FFF, and it's quite normal that Anelka refused to apologise for something he claims not to have said. Angry exchanges are frequent in dressing rooms, probably even moreso than usual in places like the world cup, and the whole “Anelkagate” was nothing more than a cheap attempt by some hack and insider to take the heat away from Domenech and the FFF's 4-year epic fail by creating a pointless controversy that “disrupts” the ideal image of sports as some kind of thing where nobody hurts anybody, everybody is always polite, and under no circumstances whatsoever can a player lose his temper (Zidane 06 is “l'exception qui confirme la règle”). Abidal? He didn't feel able to give 100% due to the emotional situation amongst the group, and told the manager. TERRIBLE MAN! Ribéry is called out because Domenech didn't have the balls to tell him to play on the right and couldn't manage to build team spirit in 4 years (not that I condone the Ribéry-Gourcuff relationship as healthy, but it certainly seems that it's one of those “borderline” cases where it's seen by one party as being harmless fun and an aggression by the other rather than some kind of clear-cut thing). Toulalan is there because… Well… Ok, his lawyer did write the statement after all and well, perhaps there's something else, oh and 5 is a nice number too.

I disagree with you on if the other three players have a “future” with the EdF. Sure, Anelka looks like he's on the way out, but with only Benzema, Gignac and… Briand? as successors, there could very well be a place for Anelka, either on the bench or for the first six months/year of the qualifiers, or perhaps just as a 3rd choice striker to bring in when there's some injuries. For all the hate I have for him (holding onto the ball for aaaages), if he hadn't scored against Lithuania in the Euro 2008 qualifiers France wouldn't have had to buy tickets to Swissaustria, and if he hadn't scored against Ireland at Croke Park, Henry's hand ball would have happened amongst a mob of Irish fans drunkenly celebrating qualifying for the World Cup 2010 30-odd minutes earlier. Italy didn't mind having Inzaghi on the bench in 2006, Greece was fine with Zagorakis in 2004, nor did France regret Djorkaeff in 2000. If Blanc can make Anelka work in his team selection, banning him isn't helping the team in any way. Evra and Abidal make even less sense. Evra will be 31 in 2012, Abidal 32. Sure, they might not be starters, but for defenders, that's hardly old. Blanc knows that pretty well, since he won the WC aged 32 and the Euro aged 34… And in 2000 Desailly was 31 and LeBoeuf 32 as well! France might not -need- any of these players (Clichy, Trémoulinas, Cissokho, Squillaci, Mexès, Rami, Sakho can step up to the plate), but I'd be weary of dismissing them without some kind of very strong reasoning behind it, and without it being a direct choice of a coach who has worked with them at least once. For all the shit you throw at Evra and Abidal, they've got more silverware than pretty much every single player available to Blanc in defence, and I doubt it's because they got lucky and they “just happened to be in the right place at the right time”. Abidal's a turd in central defence? Why did Domenech play him there? Because the rest aren't much better (fig. 1 : Ciani). With Gallas out of the picture, it's going to be Squillaci, Mexès and Rami/Sakho/etc. vying for the places. Mexès has managed to show that whilst he's good in red, for some reason he's terrible in blue, and Squillaci is ok but seems to fall just a bit short of being a great central defender (and he's 29 already). Perhaps Blanc will find a way to play in defence that doesn't need Abidal. But if Mexès is playing terribly and Squillaci gets injured, I'm sure he'd appreciate being able to call in Abidal from the sidelines to bring a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of experience to the back line. Evra, pretty much the same thing. Clichy, Cissokho, Trémoulinas, etc. -can- replace him. But so far Clichy has failed, and Cissokho/Trémoulinas are still untested at this level… Perhaps Blanc would appreciate having Evra on the bench, if only to use him in the case of Trémoulinas/Cissokho having a stinker against a surprisingly effective winger, to avoid the risk of throwing both of the French LB “next big things” into a premature depression in 90 minutes.

Even thinking about removing Toulalan from the “pool” of players is ridiculous. L. Diarra is the only player that's on par with him in the French NT (M'Vila -could- be close to that level, but he'll need more than two years to reach it). Unless Blanc is planning to use a kind of fluid 4-4-2, 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 where all the central midfielders have to attack and defend in equal amounts, and never use a holding midfielder role, then Toulalan pretty much needs to be in the squad, even if Diarra is the #1 choice, since the other “options” (A. Diarra, M. Sissoko, B. Matuidi) are so far below his level that it's a joke to cut him.

Ribéry is pretty obviously one of the main talents in the pool of players that can be called up to the French NT. Only question : is he “manageable”? Blanc might think he's of the same calibre as Cantona and Papin, a genius, but one that isn't suited to the type of team he's trying to build. But since Blanc hasn't managed Ribéry (or even played/coached with him), I think it'd be better to leave that question open for Blanc to decide on his own terms. Ribéry is one of the most effective players in the world if he is managed right, and like most offensive players, works “only” if the whole team is playing well. Blanc is the only person who can answer these questions, and certainly not the FFF in some kind of “mock trial” without Blanc having even started his work with the team.

I agree that players should be put on probation/be punished for what they did in South Africa (striking was a -terrible- idea), but I disagree with it being five that take the fall for the whole squad. The players all went “on strike”, so it's ridiculous that only five take the fall. Sure, you can give “harsher” penalties to certain players that were “more active” or “cause X problem”, but if this is anything more than one more match suspension, then it'll be a joke. France has a nice and easy qualifying group, so there's almost no pressure on the FFF. If they wanted to ban all 23 players from playing for France until the 1st of Jan 2011, it wouldn't be a big problem (Belarus, Bosnia, Romania, Luxemburg… I -think- even France B can get 7 points against them, if not 9 or 10). They can then give the “ringleaders” a double penalty : banned until the 1st of July 2011 (Luxemburg being the only other match missed).

Given how logical and reasonable the FFF is though, this'll be even less interesting than the Moscow trials : lifetime ban for Anelka until he apologises, year-long bans for Evra and Abidal, and one to three match bans for Toulalan and Ribéry. Send out a good signal : the other players are too stupid to have made a conscious choice, and these five players manipulated them completely, to such an extent that our own staff and the management we had put in place was helpless.

when everyone states that the whole team is responsible i cannot understand how people do not take into consideration the interview of Stéphane Ruffier, France's fourth goalkeeper who joined the group in South Africa after Cédric Carasso's injury.
He gave a different version of the events. He said that the boycott was the decision of a few players around Evra and that the rest of the group had followed in support of them. But he added that probably some players didn't want to do that, and that some guys “were not themselves” when they followed. He also said that what happened in the bus and within the group is srictly between the players and shouldn't come out.

He was the first one, after the “leaders” and the seniors (Evra, Abidal, Henry, and to a lesser extent, Malouda) to suggest that the unanimity was only a façade and that some players didn't agree about the boycott even if they didn't dare to face the leaders.

This clearly means that the senior players are still ringleaders and though a majority of the events was their fault they want to show team “unity” to get away from severe consequences. Such a shame for the few players who disagreed with the boycott at first…

Indeed. According to Ruffier “au fond d'eux-mêmes” some players didn't completely agree with the idea to boycott training. But they didn't disagree enough to say “no”, or even enough to just say “leave me out of this”.

But let's get some other opinions, how about opinons of people who were there during the whole “affaire”, including the dressing-room bust-up between Anelka and Domenech, and the longer history of Ribéry and Gourcuff in EdF…

Toulalan : « On a eu une discussion le samedi soir : personne ne s’est manifesté. Donc oui, tout le monde était d’accord. Peut-être que certains n’ont pas osé… Moi-même, j’ai d’énormes regrets. Car j’aurais pu le faire. Je ne suis pas fier de ce qui s’est passé, mais j’assume. On était tous dedans. Celui qui dit le contraire est un menteur. » and « Si vous voulez me faire dire que certains ont poussé à la grève contre l’avis des autres: non. Personne n’a été menacé. Lors des réunions, personne n’a été bloqué pour sortir. Cinq ou six joueurs s’exprimaient, mais tout le monde avait le droit à la parole. Celui qui voulait aller s’entraîner aurait pu descendre du car. »

Lloris : (from Le Monde's summary of his interview) ” Hugo Lloris a réfuté la thèse d'une fracture entre meneurs et suiveurs lors de cette grève. “On ne peut pas se désolidariser du groupe, c'est la base d'une équipe”, déclare le portier international. Il a également rejeté les rumeurs concernant ses excuses auprès de Domenech à l'issue de cette crise. “

Planus : “Jérémy Toulalan a été interviewé, et je me rapproche de ce qu'il a dit… Je suis complètement d'accord avec ça. Maintenant, c'est terminé !”

Of course, there's Evra, Abidal, Malouda, Gallas and Anelka, but if they're the “ringleaders” they're not going to say they weren't supported by the whole team, are they?

The main problem with Ruffier's depiction of the team is that it's completely laughable. These players who didn't agree with the decisions didn't realise that going on “strike” might be seen as something pretty major, in particular if the “declaration” states that the team is unanimous? They didn't get off the bus? Haven't spoken to the press about it?

The people who want to stick to the “good guys/bad guys” reading l'Equipe and FF offered on the day of the strike (Good guys = Gourcuff & Toulalan & Sagna & Lloris & al. / Bad guys = Evra & Abidal & Ribéry & Anelka & Malouda & Govou & Gallas & Henry & al.) are sounding increasingly like conspiracy theorists. No matter how much evidence to the contrary is presented, they cling on the the few little bits that they think “validate” their ideas, and dismiss everything else as “conspiracy things”. The “cadres” took over from Domenech and forced the whole team into striking, to get back at the FFF for getting rid of Anelka. They have since somehow found a way to strong-arm everybody into not telling the media the “real” events, and instead confirm their version of events.

Rod – the podcast is out, you can listen to it at: http://ligue1talk.com/2010/08/06/ligue-1-talk-p...

Interesting comment Shazback.

I really hate that the FFF is choosing particular players to blame and letting the rest free. Either everyone gets punished equally or none do.

About Ribery – I always comment that he shouldn't be a member of the French NT anymore. As a citizen of France, I do not feel like he accurately represents our people. However, if Blanc could somehow harness the Ribery from the 2006 world cup I would be thrilled to have him on the team. Ribery was much more lively back then, when he was new. Do you remember that goal against Spain? I don't know how he was managed back then, because Domench was coach. Maybe he just hadn't gained the ridiculous amount of confidence yet. Or maybe Zizou just put him in his place. Anyhow, his situation is progressively getting worse and it getting so serious it's damaging the whole team.