Yes, France Does Still Have (Some) Players in Champions League

Would you believe that I almost forgot about Champions League this week? Lyon out, Lille out… I’ve kind of lost interest. But not quite. So here’s an update of France NT players still in the game.

First up today, we have our largest contingent of France NT players in the ManU-Roma game. Which means there are two — one for each team. For awhile it looked like Louis Saha would be back, perhaps not starting, but at least playing. Alas, this doesn’t appear to be the case. “Saha was forced to return to Manchester for further treatment after suffering a recurrence of the problem in training on Friday.” Seems like Louis just can’t catch a break this year.

But the good news is that it looks like Patrice Evra is back and fit and expected to feature. LOVE Evra!

And on the Roma side we have Philippe Mexès, who I’m actually starting to like. He’s fun to watch, which is really saying something for a centerback. I mean, they’re frequently only really visible when they make a mistake. But Mexès has figured out a way to put drama and interest into the position, and I’m kind of enjoying it. Because of him I’ll be rooting for Roma today. (Sorry, Louis and Patrice!)

And also today we have Chelsea, with Lassana Diarra and Claude Makélélé . Sadly, Claude has been featuring less and less lately, seeing his spot usurped mostly by John Obi Mikel. (Or Mikel John Obi, if you prefer.) Not sure what’s happened between Makélélé and Mourinho, but it’s not happy.

And then there’s Lassana Diarra. He didn’t start at Tottenham this weekend, which is presumably because they were saving him for today. So I’m expecting to see good things from our young Lassana. (Even though I’ll probably be watching ManU-Roma. So I’ll actually expect to HEAR good things about Lassana, after the fact.)

(And in searching for Lassana Diarra news today, something kind of freaky happened. The first news article Google returned was mine, from this blog. Apparently I qualify as “news” now. Boy, is THAT a frightening thought!)

Tomorrow’s a lot more boring for France fans, because we only had one France NT player expected to play: Willy Sagnol for Bayern Munich. Unfortunately, there’s extraordinarily bad news on that front. Willy is out for the rest of the season — an estimated four months — with a knee injury. And those four months do include France’s two June Euro qualifiers. Hand me a hankie, because I think I’m going to cry. I know Clerc is the heir apparent, and he played really well against Austria, but has the man actually played in anything but friendlies? I’m hopeful yet also fearful.

But we can discuss that some other time. For now, go France guys!