French Outlook

France was blown out of Euro 2008 from the hands of Italy.
Ever since France beat Italy in Euro 2000, they lost to Italy in crucial matches one in 2006 World Cup Final and now. Pirlo and De Rossi both the players packed them away. Raymond Domenech made some mistakes in the sense of team selection. In the 23 men squad he dropped one of the best and finest French centre back Philippe Mexes and then he dropped Flamini a truly a versatile midfielder and then he dropped 2007-2008 Serie A’s second highest goal poacher David Trezeguet, who is in great form with Juventus. Trezeguet team mate Alessandro Del Piero who is in Sere A’s top goal scorer and this man got selected into Italy team and Trezeguet couldn’t. And the far most important thing is that Mexes is playing for AS Roma, Flamini moved to AC Milan & Trezeguet is playing for Juventus (all the three players were linked to Serie A clubs, a disaster. So Domenech made the fatal mistake by not selecting these 3 solid men Mexes, Flamini and Trezeguet. Just prior to start of the Euro 2008 edition, Flamini got the call from Domenech to replace injured Patrick Vieira, but his injury & fitness begin to improve and Flamini stayed with French team and even he attended training. Then Flamini got his second blow when Domenech send him back to France after Vieira recovery. But it didn’t happen, Flamini back home and Vieira back in the bench through out the Euro 2008. Well in his team he selected some old aged players like Thuram, Sagnol, Vieira, Makalele, and Coupet and so on. Domenech coached France U21 team for nearly 10 years or so. Instead of picking old aged players he would have been selected players like Mexes (26), Flamini (24), Bacary Sagna (26), and Gael Clichy (22).

In the first 11 he chooses a old handed goal keeper in Coupet in all the game. Instead Domenech would have been picked inform AC Fiorentina’s Sebastien Frey, yes he don’t have the experience but he is in great form and voted as the best goal keeper in Serie A, he had outclassed Buffon. Through out this edition of Euro 2008 apart from Franc Ribery and Toulalan none of them impressed, former two were outstanding. In the match against Italy he fielded Abidal in the centre back instead of Boumsong who is the center back and others were shown disinterest in this match and Malouda was really not best in this tournament.

Now they have FIFA 2010 World Cup Qualifiers which will be starting from September 2008. From here on they need to build new young squad in Mexes, Flamini, Bacary, Clichy, Frey, and Toulalan and so on with a winning mentality. Now everyone is tipping towards Didier Deschamps as the France coach, he have the experience in coaching AS Monaco and Juventus FC and he mastered AS Monaco to win French League Cup in 2003 and UEFA Champions League final where they lost to Porto in 2002-03 and he led Juventus back into Serie A.

Now we need to wait and see who will coach the French team, is it Domenech or deschamps or someone else and how the young players will outplay the older ones.

France have some highly talented players such as Nasri is the ideal replacement for legend Zidane, Lassana Diarra is the ideal replacement for Makalele, Toulalan and Flamini is the best replacement for Vieira, in defence Sagnol could be replaced to Clerc & Sagna and in the centre back Mexes can fit stronger and in the left back they have Gael Clichy who plays left back and left midfield.

France should build a better winning mentality team with these young talented lads towards FIFA 2010 World Cup:

Frey, Mexes, Clichy, Sagna, Clerc, Flamini, Ribery, Toulalan, Nasri, L.Diarra, Benzema and Gomis