France vs. China: World Cup Friendly Preview!

June 4th, 2010 | by: Sarah | View Comments

Allez Les Bleus!

It’s been less than a week since our last friendly- and Jeff and Jean-Francois have done a great job dissecting the Bleus tactics and what they need to do to improve.  So, I’ll just give everyone a quick preview of what we can expect from our competition, China, today.

China will be hoping to scare France as much as they did in their last encounter before the 2006 World Cup.  France ended up winning that game 3-1, but it was hardly convincing considering the different in talent on the two teams.  Of course, it helps when you fracture the opposing team’s strikers leg. Let’s hope their strategy is different this time.  Going into this game, China is riding a wave a recent success.  Though they aren’t going to the World Cup this summer, they’ve recently won the East Asian Football Championship though in March they folded to a less than impressive Portugal team.  China won’t be featured at the World Cup, but they are gearing up for the Asian Cup in January so there should be plenty of motivation to deliver a strong performance.

TEAM UPDATES

Gallas is still a question mark- for this game and for the tournament.  Reportedly, his calves are still causing him a few problems….

Gallas’ back-up, Planus, is definitely out this game with a sprained ankle-but this is a minor injury that shouldn’t affect him during the tournament.

Nico took a dive on a bike ride during one of Domenech’s famous team-building activities.  Other than a bruised ago, he appears to be fine.

Starting XI Prediction: Lloris; Sagna, Squillaci, Abidal, Evra; Gourcuff, Toulalan, Malouda; Govou, Anelka, Ribery