[guignol]

No L1 matches this week (doh !) but lots of olympiens will be hard at work.

coupet, réveillère, govou, wiltord et malouda will be playing two crucial matches for les bleus: saturday 3/9 in lens against the faroe islands and wednesday in dublin against ireland. For coupet it’s his 13th cap, RVR’s 2nd, malouda’s 4th. For govou it’s n° 16 with 3 goals, and for our own nino wiltord, it’s 71 caps and 23 scores.

carew will be in slovenia saturday, and plays scotland in oslo wednesday. Both these teams are 4 points behind italy, the winner will have a good chance to get a 2nd place berth.

juninho will be with the selecao sunday for a decisive match against chile. If they win they’ll be qualified for WC2006 with two matches left (sigh)… then it’s a friendly in spain tuesday or wednesday to celebrate the centenary of FC Seville.

lamine diatta will be in zambia saturday. The heroes of 2002 will have it tough. Even if they win their last two matches against zambia and djila diarra’s mali, they’ll need help to qualify.

[SportBoy333]

No Tiago playing for Portugal ? Is Portugal not playing this weekend ?

[Looper121]

********, the entire team is gonna come back wiped out for Monaco...

[ElasticNorseman]

Originally Posted by guignol

...carew will be in slovenia saturday, and plays scotland in oslo wednesday. Both these teams are 4 points behind italy, the winner will have a good chance to get a 2nd place berth....

Huge game today for Norway and Carew.

[guignol]

So how did our boys do for god and country?

france beat the faeroe islands 3-0. coupet and malouda played the whole match, and rather well. Not much work for greg, but one very nice stop on a very dangerous shot when france was up 1-0. flo very active, his pass to cissé set up the first goal and he had two close chances himself. wiltord came in for henry in the second half, and offered cissé a caviar cross for his second goal. ; Réveillère wathced from the bench and Govou from the stands. rendez-vous wednesday in ireland!

Norway won a big match in slovenia 3-2, with a first minute goal from carew. with italy held to a 1-1 nil in scotland, things are looking up for them.

senegal and lamine diatta beat zambia 1-0 but with togo beating liberia 3-0, things look tough.

Brazil qualified with two matches in hand with a 5-0 trouncing of chile and an adriano hat-trick. Juninho came on in the 2nd half, and touched 24 balls in 24 minutes. one shot on goal, but a free kick in a very sweet position was played quickly from under his nose by kaka, one wonders why.

[guignol]

Originally Posted by Looper121

********, the entire team is gonna come back wiped out for Monaco...

not the entire team. OL didn't beef up the squad just to have pretty pictures of players on the bench and the stands!

[Quaresma_10]

Originally Posted by SportBoy333

No Tiago playing for Portugal ? Is Portugal not playing this weekend ?

Tiago is not part of the Portugal team yet.

[guignol]

Originally Posted by Quaresma_10

Tiago is not part of the Portugal team yet.

he'll have to show more than he did saturday to get capped. what one saw of him was very nice, there just wasn't enough of it.

[guignol]

Norway
in group 5, Norway and John Carew are at 12 points, 5 behind the leader Italy. They host Moldavia October 8th and travel to Belarus on October 12th.

France
Les Bleus go to Bern this Saturday to play Switzerland, then host Cyprus in the Stade de France on October 12th. Gones Grégory Coupet, Anthony Réveillère, Florent Malouda, Sidney Govou et Sylvain Wiltord are in the group.

In U-21, Jérémy Clément and Jérémy Berthod pour meet the same teams the dates are October 7th and October 11th.

Then there’s the U-19 squad, who will play two friendlies against Norway, today October 5 and Friday the 7th. The two keepers are Joël Bats’ protégés Johan Hartock et Rémy Riou. Defender Sandy Paillot, midfielder Romain Beynié and strikers Hatem Ben Arfa and Karim Benzema have been capped.

Portugal
In group 3, Tiago and Portugal are in front with 24 points. They play Liechtenstein on the 8th and Lithuania on the 12th, both at home.

Brazil
The Seleçao goes to Bolivia October 9th and host Venezuela on the 12 octobre 2005. Juninho and his teammates, already qualified, are second in their group with 30 points, 1 point behind Argentina.

Senegal
Senegal and Lamine Diatta will host Mali, without Diarra, suspended. Second, 2 points behind Togo, Senegal will be trying to take first place in their combined ANC-WC qualifying group.

[guignol]

a little update: for those who played for france it's not necessary as we all followed those matches pretty closely but for the others:

Tiago and Portugal qualified for WC2006 by beating little Liechtenstein 2-0. Tiago played the last 15 minutes. He started the Lithuania match, a 3-0 win and a yellow card.

Carew's teammates beat Moldavia and Belarus both on 1-0 scores without him: he was suspended for the first and in bed with the flu for the second. They'll have a play-off to win to get to the big show.

Senegal with Lamine Diatta beat Mali without Diarra (suspended) 3-0. Since Togo beat the Congo 3-2 they don't go to Germany, but they qualified for the African Nations' Cup. For Mali on the other hand, it's all over but the crying.

last but not least, in matches "pour du beurre", Brazil tied Bolivia 1-1, with the score coming from a Juninho® free-kick in the 24th minute. In the seleçao's 3-0 victory over Venezuela, he came in for Zé Roberto in the 67th minute.