France vs. Spain Live Blog

cool!! can’t wait!!

cool!! can’t wait!!

I can’t connect.. I hope this has nothing to do with my opinions on HBA…

Justin- sorry, I didnt see your comments on hold (its my first liveblog)

Why is Nasri not even on the roster when Cisse is?

#John – I agree that Nasri should be on the roster however he and Cisse are different roles – Midfielder vs Striker. I think that Nasri should be on the roster over Govou since the Arsenal man can also play the right channel as he does for his club.

More of rants about the side – http://thebeantownfrog.blogspot.com/2010/02/domenech-announces-his-23-for-spain.html

Not cool being locked out of chat. Been trying to get in since halftime. Ah well, hopefully every bench player gets playing time in the second half.

Jao

So sorry for those who were locked out- it doesnt tell me when someone new enters and its my first liveblog so Im still figuring out how to use it..

It is getting to a point where accepting callup is pointless and a spit in the face by Domenech. I actually feel sorry for Rami, Cissokho, Cheyrou, Ben Arfa, Remy, Sissoko, and Fanni. Four days of their life they will surely not get back. I guess Domenech is sending 14 players to the World Cup. I wait….I forgot Vieira. *sigh*

its not rays fought its the FFF.

if ray had any honor he should resign after the 06 world cup. at least people would remember him for taking france to the final but now no one will remember him.

this believed he is de shit and can coach how sad. he had to recall zidane makele thuram after they had retired after euro 04

That was awful! I agree that those that the new players that were called up should have been given a chance…they could not do any worse.

my overall thoughts on the match -

http://thebeantownfrog.blogspot.com/2010/03/france-v-spainthe-haves-and-have-nots.html

They never looked like scoring. There’s no threat from France as a team. I’m not sure why they are ranked so high in the world. Gourcuff looked lost again and continues to lose the ball in midfield. Henry is showing why he’s getting no playing time at Barca.

the next coach should switch back to 4-4-2

gignac-remy
malouda-gourcuff-toulalan-ribery
tremoulinas-planus-squillaci-reveillere
lloris

sub
gameiro
benzema
riviere
menez
flamini
marveaux
ciani
sakho
clichy
carrasso

I guess Michel-Olivier really hates Arsenal — he has Flamini on the bench, a player who’s hardly played at all this season, while Sagna (one of the few players who did very well in yesterday’s game) is completely ignored. He does have Clichy, who’s been very poor this season at Arsenal, totally off form and (unlike Sagna) is known for incredibly stupid, catastrophic mistakes.

Sagna hasn’t had had a great season either but he’s been better than Clichy. But both have done better than Flamini this season (not knocking Flamini as a player, I like him, but not on current form and match practice). While Gallas has been far superior to all 3 players, he’s been injured recently but he’s recovered now to feature in Arsenal’s next game. Then there’s Diaby, who’s improved hugely this season with Arsenal. Not knocking Michel’s other choices, all good ones I think. Henry has to be dropped.

Anyway, it’s amazing how little threat France have in front of goal, the defense is ok, even at its weakest. France don’t concede a lot of goals even with the weakest defense on the pitch, tho some of those goals are conceded thru schoolboy errors. But they’re completely toothless up front–it’s an extraordinary thing to say with players like Gourcuff, Ribery, Gignac, Malouda, Benzema, Nasri, Ben Arfa and even Henry available.

The problem with France relates to three things:

1. No coach. Dumbenech rolls them out there with no plan. How in the hell are you going to expect to play a midfield-rooted match against the best midfield in the world, as regards attack, defense and possession? So of course we never looked like scoring.

2. No captain. Anelka is not the guy you want leading the line, and he wastes precious little time and effort in showing us that, time and again. But Henry isn’t getting playing time at Barca, as as we all know, players need reps. He clearly lacked match pace and fitness, and he isn’t going to get it.

3. No real attack. Les Bleus are, in effect, playing street ball. Everybody is just running around, relying on pace and athleticism to get the job done. It does against most teams, but not the top ones, like Spain.

Now, if you drop Henry, then who leads the line? Please don’t say Benzema, who this season is making a name for himself as the world’s most expensive piece of shit. Then what? Gignac? Better than Benzema, but still not ready.

I’d love to see a Barca-style system, with no real striker but a coterie of talented attackers up front, rooted in ball movement. But again, that requires a coach with the quality to implement such a system. We don’t have one.

Oh, and any back line that doesn’t include Abidal is flawed. He’s just about the best left back in the world these days.

I completely agree, domenech just seems to throw out the players with no system or strategy, his substitutions make no sense and he is clearly lacking with regards to having any fire in his belly to get things right.

Why not take a chance and look to drop Henry or move him to the point and lean on Ribery – Gourcuff – Remy/Ben Arfa in the midfield? It would add a dimension of speed and width that is clearly lacking with the current formation. Alas, I fear that Domenech will stick to his guns – we will see Gignac back up front, Henry on the left and Anelka/Ribery on the right with a clearly out of sorts Gourcuff in the middle and 2 holding midfielders…sigh. Oh well at least I did not try to get tickets to go to South Africa….

More thoughts on the game –
http://thebeantownfrog.blogspot.com/2010/03/domenech-debacle-continuescan-we-please.html

Just saw the highlights and neither here or there, these are friendlies ladies and gentlemen and if you want to overly worry about these competitions you gotta load up on that heart medication once World Cup comes around.
Now in defense of Sagna, no pun intended. No body and I mean no member of this Arsenal squad this year has been more consistent than Bacary Sagna. His crosses mind you leave a lot to be desired but when it comes to shutting down the access to the goal from the right side of the field I challenge you to find that the least number of goals or errors are committed by him
on the right side. Defensively he is solid as a rock!
he needs a creative speedy right winger such as Eboue
or the old Theo in front of him. If you’re going to criticize Sagna give me some specifics.

I’m with ForeverZ on all points. Yeah, the squad looked like a bunch of sleepwalkers for most of the first half, but it was a friendly — in the crunch of domestic leagues, at the Stade (who the hell chose that venue?!), against a team that is not only the best in the world, entitled and capable of arrogance, but also perhaps intent on erasing some history and carving a future. Much like Les Bleus 10 years ago.

As to a lack of system: If Ribery, Gourcuff, Henry and Anelka haven’t learned to play with each other by now then maybe they have a problem among themselves, non? (Tough Henry is still talismanic, and should go to S.A., he is not a 70-minute man, or starter anymore. Gimme — blech — Benz instead.) I’m not convinced Dom gets all, or even most, of the blame here. And I expect better at the Cup.

But, all told, my greatest wish came through: Sagna and Cesc go back to London (relatively) unscathed. Aller you Gunners.

The back line (except for Sagna) looked terrible.

Evra got burned on both of those goals, and Escude was caught on his back foot so many times. Serious question marks there.

The midfield was simply terrible. They got handled by Spain and couldn’t win battles, push forward, help defend… nothing.. I am thoroughly disgusted. I’m not saying Cheyrou would have been better, but since Dom never gave him playing time, we’ll never know.

The forwards showed a bit of spark at the beginning. Ribery and heck even Henry had a good run at the beginning, but they seemed to do a lot of work just to lose the ball repeatedly. Cisse looked good in the few minutes he was on, but didn’t get enough opportunities to strike.

Until Domenech gives up playing two DMs, which he won’t, we will never succeed. Why put two players out there in Diarra and Toulalan to work in tandem when either one of them can do each other’s job and their own by themselves?

I am honestly just waiting until August. Good World Cup or bad, I am looking forward to that match in Oslo. Just thinking how completely different the team will look.

Here’s the 23 men I’d want to see in France’s final WC squad:

Starting line-up—
Lloris
Sagna-Gallas-Abidal-Evra
B.Arfa-L.Diarra-Flamini-Ribery
Anelka-Benzema

Subs—
Mandanda, Carasso; Ciani, Fanny, Mexes, Clichy; Be.Cheyrou, A.Diarra, Malouda, Gourcuff; D.Cissé, Henry.

Jao has a good point about the dual DMs. Or if you’re going to do that, make one a box-to-box specialist, which is what Barca does when we run out Toure Yaya and Seydou Keita (or Busquets). One becomes more of a destroyer/advanced playmaker than DM.

At some point, we have to learn to string passes together in a fashion that generates threat. That you can certainly place squarely at the feet of Dumbenech. Sometimes, you just have to stroke the ball around, retain possession and get your sea legs underneath you, as Spain does so well.

The other thing this match reminded us of is how dazzling Zidane was. So much is possible with ultimate midfield control, and we had that with he and Vieira (his hamstring injury was, for me, when the Cup final really turned).

But right now, we don’t have that Zidane or Xavi type, who can just control and distribute. That is so crucial in international football today.

I saw this on a French site , I LIKE IT

_______________________________Lloris

Sagna_____________Ciani ou rami___________Gallas______________Abida
______________________________L.Diarra______________________________

Anelka_______________________Gourcuff________________________Malouda

___________________________Ribery

_________________________________Saha

If the World Cup started today, I’d select these players in a 4-4-2:

Lloris
Sagna – Gallas – Abidal – Cissoko
Ben Arfa – Anelka -Gourcuff – Malouda
Ribery – Cissé

based on his last performance, Evra’s set himself up for bench duty. Also, I’m not sure if I want to see Escude starting. ever. again.

But Terry, that lineup would require a coach with some foresight and aggression. I like it, too.

I’m skeptical about Gourcuff. He seemed like the answer last year but his last few games have shown he still struggles to control the ball and be a good distributor. He can’t do much in a tight space and even looks clumsy at times. That might cut it in Ligue 1 but on this level he seems out of his league. It’s a shame and maybe we are expecting too much out of him. A Zidane he ain’t at this point in his career.

That’s because Gourcuff’s used to having a box-to-box midfielder with him who can not only defend, but make decent runs into the opponents defense to protect him. He has that at Bordeaux with Fernando and sometimes Plasil. What options does Gourcuff have when he’s attacking and he looks back to see both Diarra and Toulalan sitting back waiting on a counter from the opposition. Zidane had a prime Vieira. He might of not possess amazing attacking flair, but he provided cohesion between the defense and the attackers and every once in awhile plowed forward to support the team’s forwards, while only Makalele sat back. You don’t get that with bouth Toulalan and Diarra out there, plain and simple. I would of love to see what Cheyrou or Sissoko could of done playing with Gourcuff but Domenech completely wasted his subs.

Just watch the match against Greece at EURO 2004 when Vieira was out. Complete dis-function even with Zidane out there.

So far we’re all in agreement that Toulalan and Diarra is overkill. So who is the one player who should be playing the DM role?
Also In my opinion Titi is occupying a space that would be better served by a younger talent, that is no disrespect to the Arsenal legend but strictly facts.
Personally I would not be playing Anelka in any other position but the Center Forward, why are we trying to re-invent things, the guy is doing so great in that position with his club team.
Patrice Evra great for Man.U. and completely useless for Les Bleus!

Reading these comments, I have to say that I didn’t notice Evra being that bad, but I don’t know if I can take watching the match again to go back to see what I missed.

I completely agree with the comments about Sagna being a really reliable defender, I love that guy, and he had a really sweet cross from deep in this match in the first half. It was cleared, but it was very promising. I think he’s going from strength to strength right now.

I saw Evra pushing up, winning balls in midfield, getting stuck in. For the goals, the first was through the center of the defense which was holding a quite-poor line high up the pitch. For the second, Evra was covering in the middle when the goal came from the left. At least that’s what I think I saw. I tend to rate him highly, both for Man United and France. Even if he had an off match, he’s a great left back – that’s so far from a position I’m worried about.

Jeff, it might be painful, but regarding Evra’s generally awful play, please watch the match again.

Evra did have that one good steal in the beginning of the match, but after my initial optimism, he wasn’t really there to trouble any of the Spanish attack..

@ Justin,

Evra was just as poor as his 10 other colleagues on the pitch. He didn’t stand out as one of the worst, IMO, which is what you and few people seem to imply.

Evra is the best left back France has, and one of the best in the world. Doubting his contribution is absurd. I’m more than bewildered to see so much negativity about Patrice. I want him to remain our left back for the upcoming mundial. We will need him.

“Evra is the best left back France has”

How can you say this when you haven’t seen how Cissokho, Clichy, or Tremoulinas would function if they were given the run of games Evra gets or even…one chance, something Domenech dismisses. I’m not critical of Evra as I believe everyone, excluding Sagna, sucked, but to say he’s France’s best left back without even considering there are 3 other guys who can rival him if they were to get playing time is ludicrous.

Good news is that Gael Clichy is back, yes the real Clichy was in great form against the mighty Burnley!
Blazing speed and decent crosses into the box, definitely worth a look by the Les Bleus coaching staff.
However I think Domenech meister has given the job to EVRA and barring any injuries he is the chosen one.

JUSTIN C
I LOVE YOUR TEAM BRO

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