Scouting each opponent: France

[Murat.Marshal]

I got this idea from group C.

How do you play against France? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Discuss

[JoshDB]

They have a pretty weak attack, as Thierry Henry is not nearly as prolific with country as with club. They're old, and I'd simply absorb their pressure and attack late. I expect South Korea to cause an upset here.

[ilv2]

They have a pretty weak attack, as Thierry Henry is not nearly as prolific with country as with club. They're old, and I'd simply absorb their pressure and attack late. I expect South Korea to cause an upset here.

:rolleyes:

[keehyunan]

well, why not mention strengths and weakness of each team?
Korea lacks some defense, yet it has speedy attack.

[Saugatak]

They have a pretty weak attack, as Thierry Henry is not nearly as prolific with country as with club. They're old, and I'd simply absorb their pressure and attack late. I expect South Korea to cause an upset here.
I think you've hit the nail on the head.

If game is tied late, I think Korea's energy will lead to victory. If France gets early lead, they have a great chance of winning.

Not sure if sitting back is such a great strategy. I'd prefer aggressive counter attacking to get the old French greybeards to run back and forth all the time and tire them out.

[Nanbawan]

Any team that leaves open spaces to France is suicidal...

[Saugatak]

Was Senegal suicidal?

[Nanbawan]

Was Senegal suicidal?

No, my point is still valid...:p

[Saugatak]

Was Denmark suicidal? ;)

[midknight]

France 2006, (well 2005) actually isnt France 2002. Neither is it France 2000. Lets put things into perspective.
Since going out to greece in the euro France has played 17 games. 7 friendlies and 10 qualifiers against 12 different opponents. It may be noted that France played every friendly at home.

Its record is 8 9 0 24-7 1.94 pts/match, 1.4 GF/match 0.4 Ga/match
qualifiers 5-5-0 14-2 2 pts/ match, 1.4 GF/match 0.1 Ga/match
friendlies 3-4-0 10-5 1.86 pts/match, 1.4 GF/match 0.7 Ga/match
11 of its matches were clean sheets

What is strange is that with one of its weakest teams in ages, France has been able to pull off one of the best invincible streaks in world football in 2004- 2005. However at the same time, there is something worrying. The quality of the opposition hasn't been exactly top class. I think their best adversary after Germany was Sweden. We can divide their opponents into several categories for the sake of convenience. (you can argue with me afterwards; this is my opinion)

Minnows - Cyprus, Faroes
Four of their wins came against Cyprus and the Faroes, as well as 11 of their goals. (none conceded)
3rd Tier teams - Bosnia, Hungary, Costa Rica, Israel, Ivory Coast
3 wins and 2 draws (10 goals scored 5 goals conceded)
2nd Tier teams - Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Poland,
1 win, 5 draws (3 goals scored 2 conceded)
1st Tier - Germany
goalless draw

on to the qualitative analysis now

[Saugatak]

midknight

you're getting rep fo very good analysis

[Kanuck]

France 2006, (well 2005) actually isnt France 2002. Neither is it France 2000. Lets put things into perspective.
Since going out to greece in the euro France has played 17 games. 7 friendlies and 10 qualifiers against 12 different opponents. It may be noted that France played every friendly at home.

Its record is 8 9 0 24-7 1.94 pts/match, 1.4 GF/match 0.4 Ga/match
qualifiers 5-5-0 14-2 2 pts/ match, 1.4 GF/match 0.1 Ga/match
friendlies 3-4-0 10-5 1.86 pts/match, 1.4 GF/match 0.7 Ga/match
11 of its matches were clean sheets

What is strange is that with one of its weakest teams in ages, France has been able to pull off one of the best invincible streaks in world football in 2004- 2005. However at the same time, there is something worrying. The quality of the opposition hasn't been exactly top class. I think their best adversary after Germany was Sweden. We can divide their opponents into several categories for the sake of convenience. (you can argue with me afterwards; this is my opinion)

Minnows - Cyprus, Faroes
Four of their wins came against Cyprus and the Faroes, as well as 11 of their goals. (none conceded)
3rd Tier teams - Bosnia, Hungary, Costa Rica, Israel, Ivory Coast
3 wins and 2 draws (10 goals scored 5 goals conceded)
2nd Tier teams - Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Poland,
1 win, 5 draws (3 goals scored 2 conceded)
1st Tier - Germany
goalless draw

on to the qualitative analysis nowtrès bien dit cela ^.

anyways we shall see.

bonne chance à tous!

[Nanbawan]

Was Denmark suicidal? ;)

Not really, it was certainly one of the most painful matches I had to bear, France was simply nowhere in that match. Denmark terminated a very ill animal.

[Saugatak]

Yeah, I hear ya. Korea got spanked worse by Dutch.

I know France is a lot better than what they showed in WC 2002.

[gabisu no ken]

In fact France has one main problem : they don't know how to play

We have an excellent defense : Barthez is an excellent goalkeeper and we have two very good substitute, Abidal-Gallas-Thuram-Sagnol with Makelele-Vieira it's very very impressive.

We have excellent players : our only "star" who is really out of form is Zidane. Otherwise you have a lot of quality like Henry, Makelele, Vieira, Thuram, Sagnol,.... The 2 lyonnais are very good too : Abidal and Malouda looks quite good

We lack organization and coherence. Domenech's 442 is unbalanced and we lack a system. We just don't know how to play, to make passes and how to have an offensive animation. If we could play well, with strikers like Henry, Trezeguet, Saha, Cissé I'm sure we could score a lot. Without a playing system, we've to rely on an exploit or a mistake. It's painful and not so impressive, but at last we have a solid defense. The problem is that without an offensive system, we lose balls and expose our defense to counterattacks.

It's a shame that Domenech never manages to make us play as a team. I would love to see us play in 451 with Henry as the only striker and Malouda-Zidane-Ribery behind. But to play like that we should have more midfield players (like Pires, Giuly). We're gonna play 442, it's obvious now

I think our team is gonna be like the one in Euro 2004
* shudder *

[Arsenal_pwns_all]

In terms of the giants in this world cup, France is definetely the weakest. By far. The whole team is aging and the likes of Thuram, Vieira and Zidane are far away from their best. The partnership of Henry and Trézéguet is horrible and is one of the reasons why Henry often play poorly for his country. Henry plays at his best when he is playing up front with someone like Bergkamp supporting him, and France is not doing that for him. Plus Domenech is a crap manager who ditched Giuly when he is one of France's better players and who stick with Barthez when Coupet is a much better choice.

They could win against the weak opponents but against Brazil or Italy they'll be ripped into pieces. I guess if someone better takes over from Domenech they would stand a better chance in the next World cup.

[cchs_football]

They have a pretty weak attack, as Thierry Henry is not nearly as prolific with country as with club. They're old, and I'd simply absorb their pressure and attack late. I expect South Korea to cause an upset here.
Henry is lethal when he gets good service - or even when he DOESN'T get good service. He single-handedly tears apart teams like WBA, Portsmouth, or Middleborough. If the defense isn't up to scratch, he simply walks in. It's EASY for him.

And, btw, I don't consider our defense quite "up to scratch" as the top European teams. Not ever since Myung Bo left.

Another thing: no matter how bad 2006 players may be compared to other France teams, overall in terms of quality they will ALWAYS be superior in terms of experience and technical abililty to the overall Korean team. Do not underestimate France.

Having said that, I hope you're right about the result!!

[sl7vk]

In terms of the giants in this world cup, France is definetely the weakest. By far. The whole team is aging and the likes of Thuram, Vieira and Zidane are far away from their best. The partnership of Henry and Trézéguet is horrible and is one of the reasons why Henry often play poorly for his country. Henry plays at his best when he is playing up front with someone like Bergkamp supporting him, and France is not doing that for him. Plus Domenech is a crap manager who ditched Giuly when he is one of France's better players and who stick with Barthez when Coupet is a much better choice.

They could win against the weak opponents but against Brazil or Italy they'll be ripped into pieces. I guess if someone better takes over from Domenech they would stand a better chance in the next World cup.

Your mad.

France is not up to snuff at the moment but ripped to pieces by Italy? Have you lost it? France isn't conceding goals at the moment, and they'll likely bow out of this tournament after a 0-1 or 0-0 result.

[gabisu no ken]

Our main weakness is our right side. We play like this

ZZ
Malouda Vieira
Makelele

In a losange tactic. The problem is that Vieira is a center midfield, certainly not a right midfield player. Domenech is a loony and I think he's gonna play with such an unbalanced midfield until we get beaten.

Swiss with Magnin can use this weakness against us.