Friendly Poland vs. France June 9, 2011 Warsaw - 21:00 Last game before the summer break. Projected line-up: Carrasso - Sagna, Kaboul, Abidal, Evra - Cabaye, Diarra - Valbuena, Martin, N'Zogbia - Hoarau It will be nice to see N'Zogbia in action and we'll find out a bit more about Martin's potential as a playmaker. IMO Hoarau has no international future (just not enough talent), so I would have preferred to have seen another 60 min. of Gameiro. Finally, Abidal gets the start at left-center back because Blanc was so impressed with his performances vs. Italy at Euro 2008 and Mexico at WC 2010--just kidding, of course... Blanc confirmed what we all saw vs. Belarus and Ukraine: Sakho is toast, so with Rami suspended for our next official game, he's going with the Kaboul-Abidal combo. Allow me to be skeptical, but then again, not a whole lot of other options. As usual, the game will be available on ESPN3.com in the US. ALLEZ LES BLEUS!
cant help but wonder how Martin will react to this kind of promotion. he obviously has the talent. today we will see if he has the mental fortitude.
This is probably Hoarau's last chance to show something in bleu . Blanc is clearly using these games to check out a few players . And I agree lefutur , this is a big game for Martin . Everything has happend so quickly , this must be like a dream for him . We'll see if he's got the mental game .
1-0 France. 12 min. Good shot by N'Zogbia, deflected by a Polish defender. Lively pace so far on both sides, pleasant game.
Good open game . We've been caught once or twice on the counter attack . It seems we're pushing forward too much . Rami is coming on for Kaboul , looks like he picked up a injury .
Coming up to half-time and Hoarau hasn't done much . Seems to be struggling to link up with the rest of the team . Wouldn't be surprised if Blanc replaces him at the start of the 2nd . Very ineffective .
Well Blanc has kept Hoarau on for the 2nd half . Diaby and M'Vila have come on for Diarra and Cabaye .
Remy and Malouda on for Valbuena and N'Zogbia . Hoarau misses a great chance to put us 2-0 up . Nice through ball pass from Malouda I think it was .
Mostly because of indecisions . Many times we got into good positions but someone would dribble too much , or the final pass lacking . They were trying too hard to impress . There was one instance when Gameiro and Remy linked up and had a 2 v 1 situation against a polish defender , instead of passing and giving Gameiro a free shot on goal Remy totally ignored him and tried to go alone himself but Poland got men back in time . Martin played a solid game . He really does have an eye for a pass . Almost scored again too . Carrasso didn't really have anything to do so it's hard to judge .
i liked what i saw from martin, mvila, & remy alot. obviously rami too and i though diaby played really well. hoarau does not deserve the playing time, and i though evra for the most part looked poor, although he had a good run or two how could i forgot, thougt valbuena played excellent too, and i haven't been his biggest fan on the NT level
it's been a while, but on a player by player basis what i got out of the three matches was: lloris and mandanda were even at one poor play each, with steve's being a bit less excusable. carrasso promised to make a mistake too to keep them all even but he didn't get a chance. evra was excellent on the left, sagna good enough on the right to keep the pecking order as is. except for one abidal™ brainfart eric was very strong at CB. rami cosi-cosa, sakho hopefully learned a lesson: maybe he thought it would be easy. kid, tu peux pas test. not yet anyway. diaby, a waste of space. a couple of cute little dribbles but he's supposed to be a relayeur, and that means standing tall, winning balls and giving them to the attack, not losing OVER 50% OF BALLS TOUCHED. against belarus he got eaten alive and the few balls he did send forward went right over the end line. nasri got shot down in flames by the press here but when to touch the ball he has to go back and get it out from between the feet of the charnière centrale, what can you expect from a n°10?... m'vila? a big girl's blouse. unless he and diaby stop wetdreaming over last year's press clippings both their 15 minutes are UP. cabaye? a chrome-plated turd. i've always been of two minds about him, i think the EPL is going to be a big surprise for him: this year's briliiant cog in a well-oiled machine is next year's edouard cissé. ribéry? crap. comme d'hab. rémy? fast. talented. blind. selfish. stupid. all apply. gameiro? martin? both provided movement, verve, and desire. normally that should be a given, not a miracle. too bad MM scored twice, he may go the way of all ribéry (did i mention he was crap?) hoarau did his job fine. if no one could get any balls to him it's not his problem. benzema? la classe.